


Another one bites the dust

by RemainNameless



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Multi, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, implied prostitution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-09 21:22:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4364648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RemainNameless/pseuds/RemainNameless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Eggsy makes a post-almost-apocalypse trip to Kentucky to confirm Harry's alive, only Harry...doesn't come back? And, shockingly, Eggsy isn't particularly pleased about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> lmfao i am disgusting trash and there are suits and stuff and i have been listening to elastic heart a lot and i really have no excuse for myself i give up  
> (also this is so not britpicked forgive me british jesus)

It takes Eggsy approximately twenty-nine minutes to briskly walk from Kingsman to Harry’s.

It takes Eggsy approximately eight seconds to suggest Merlin have it packed up.

 

Merlin, of course, advises him to review Harry’s will, which is about the most bollocks thing he’s ever had to sit through.

 

“He never had children, obviously,” Merlin says over a cup of coffee. “Had it all squared away just after he woke up from his little experiment as a vegetable.”

“You’re telling me that Harry fuckin’ Hart left me all of his shite?”

Merlin shakes his head. “Ah. Well. No, actually, though I see where you might have gotten that impression.” At Eggsy’s look, he says, “Your mother. He left it to your mother. As well as a surprising amount of liquid assets, and then there’s his investment portfolio—”

“Wait, wait, me _mum_? He named me mum?”

“That’s correct, yes.”

Eggsy stares at him, one hand going to his mouth. “You’re having me on, mate. Everything?”

“Just about,” Merlin tells him. “All except for that bloody atrocious stuffed creature in his loo. And his seat as Galahad, logically.”

“Fuck.” Eggsy nods, breathing, trying to wrap his head around it all. “Wait, did he leave you anything?”

Merlin’s expression turns sour. He twists his mug around to show Eggsy the design: a cartoon wizard of some sort.

“The fuck’s that?”

“The Sword in the Stone,” Merlin says, and Eggsy gives him a look. “It’s a goddamned Disney movie, for fuck’s sake.”

When Eggsy barks out a laugh, Merlin looks wholly unsurprised, if peeved.

“He’s a right fuckin’ prick, ain’t he?” Eggsy says, twisting a smile.

“That he was.” Merlin’s look turns uncomfortably serious. “You made him very proud. He always said you had more heart than you knew what to do with. He never considered it a fault.”

Eggsy stares at the floor, tapping his hand against his leg for a moment. “I guess I’ll tell me mum she’s rich, yeah?”

 

Before that, on the plane back from Valentine’s HQ, Eggsy had given Merlin the heads up that he’s gonna bugger off to himself for a few days.

Roxy takes care of things for him, and he wouldn’t ask, but he’s gonna make it all up to her as soon as he gets back.

He needs it.

Turns out, while he _can_ vaguely fly a plane, it’s the landing that’s difficult. There’s a farmer in Kentucky who’s gonna wake up to a thoroughly fucked corn field.

He’s not far out of the suburbs, though, just a couple miles, and he finds the right hospital no problem. He knows it’s the right hospital because he did his fucking research, even listened to the 9-1-1 call, the jogger who called in a man with some kind of head injury outside the church. (It’s not long later before she sees _inside_ the church, and that horrified sound is something Eggsy’ll remember for a long time.)

But he finds the hospital, and he’s not actually the worse for wear by the time he makes it into the parking lot. Thankfully, his reflexes are quick enough that he manages to duck behind a car in time when he sees an all-too-familiar bald head exit a taxi.

He’d _thought_ he’d gotten at least an hour or two on Merlin, but the bastard beat him somehow.

The nurse at the reception desk is not particularly impressed by his look at first, but he’s got a whole thing planned. He shows her a picture of Merlin on his phone, starts breaking out the waterworks. Going by how American hospital visitation works, he’s sure Merlin used an alias and that alias is likely Harry’s brother. Just as well, because Eggsy can claim to be his disowned son, come to his senses after hearing his dear father was hurt in some kind of mass killing.

It’s the tears that do the trick.

She lets him back, tells him which room, but of course, he can’t _go_ to said room. He finds somewhere to tuck away, next to a water fountain, and finds his mark.

The lad he pulls aside must be an intern of some sort, going off his age.

“Hey, look here, bruv, think you can do me a favor?”

The young man starts to protest, pulling out of Eggsy’s grip, but he sees the American currency in Eggsy’s hand.

“The old man and I don’t exactly see eye to eye, but I just gotta know he’s doing okay. Can you just drop by and snap a picture of him for me so I can see how he is?”

It takes a second for him to decide to do it, but he takes the money and heads to the room Eggsy tells him.

It’s a long fucking wait, long enough to get properly angry, and he’s starting to lose faith in his choice when he sees the big-eared kid come down the hall, trying very hard to look nonchalant.

He holds out his phone, the picture up for Eggsy’s inspection.

It’s definitely Merlin’s shoulder and, behind it, looking less-than-dapper in a hospital gown, that fucking living and breathing cunt. One side of his head is all bandaged up and an arm is in a sling, but he’s _talking_ to Merlin.

“That’s him?” the intern asks.

“Yeah, that’s the fucking shit-headed bugger. Thanks.”

He hands the phone back, and he leaves.

 

Eggsy doesn’t tell Roxy when he gets back. No, he's gonna play his cards close.

It’s going to be a surprise, see. In the next week, when Harry dramatically returns, trying to shock the living daylights out of everyone, Eggsy’s going to be a little smug because he _knew_.

And that's all well and good, right, playing along with the charade, resisting the urge to wink at Merlin about the "will".

So, of course, it’s Merlin who fucks it up.

“So, when’s the funeral?” Eggsy asks more quietly than intended. His words sound too big in the near-empty dining room.

Merlin doesn’t even look up. “Kingsmen don’t have funerals.”

“So, what, that’s it? Harry gets shot in the face and we just forget about him?”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Merlin says, tapping something on his tablet. He gestures up, and one of the paintings moves to reveal a series of metal squares. Drawers, no bigger than his palm, with names and dates engraved. Well, not names so much as titles and initials.

Eggsy walks up, finds _Galahad — H.H. — 1984-2015._

“Most Kingsmen don’t have much in the way of families, nor friends. _We_ are the ones who remember them and their service.”

“There’s no secret Kingsman cemetery then?” Eggsy asks, trying to make it seem innocuous.

Merlin shakes his head. “Nothing that vain. We cremate.”

“You found him, then.” Eggsy does his best to look sad, as opposed to deeply, deeply frustrated. “And you just burned him up, just like that? Maybe I wanted to see him.”

“Had there been a funeral, it would’ve been closed casket,” Merlin says, surprisingly gently. “You should remember him as he lived.” He pats Eggsy's knee. "He's gone, son."

 

And that’s when Eggsy decides _fuck Harry_.

Clearly, he has no intention to come back, and isn’t that the least surprising thing Eggsy’s ever heard? How shocking, for the one one fucking person who seemed to give a fuck about him to willingly erase himself from Eggsy’s life. Really, he should’ve known all along, should’ve planned for it, but of course not.

Harry had him fooled. Fuck, Harry had him mesmerized.

Fucking cunt.

 

“I can’t have Daisy sleeping in a room with a balcony, love,” Eggsy’s mother tells him, and he knew that, of course, but he was hoping that situation might somehow resolve itself.

He doesn’t want to sleep in Harry’s room.

And he doesn’t, in fact. He sleeps on the couch. He’s quite sure that Harry, with all of his nitpicky “gentlemenly” standards, has never slept on his own couch.

That said, he does go into Harry’s room sometimes.

It’s not that he’s a snoop, but snooping saves lives. It really does. And who knows what sort of weird shite Harry has lying around.

Eggsy’s hoping for some kind of terrifying sex toy collection. Stuff he doesn't even know the purpose of.

Which, if it exists, is well-hidden. The closest he finds is some kind of expensive French lotion in the nightstand, because Harry apparently has to be posh even when he wanks.

In all of his searching, he nearly misses the thing right in front of him.

There’s a painting of a series of steps carved into a cliffside, leading up to a very nice small-ish house. Beachy, possibly mediterranean, probably very expensive, looking at it. In the bottom corner, in a spidery, all-capital print, it says _Monaco 1991_. It’s in Harry’s hand, his private hand. There’s his letter-writing hand, impeccably neat cursive, the letters perfectly straight and proportioned evenly, and, as Eggsy’s found from snooping in his study, there’s his print hand.

(Eggsy looked up, once, what it meant, that Harry writes in capital letters, and the result was something he should have expected: a willful deceit, a calculated maneuver at hiding all traces of personality. Of course Harry gives nothing away, even when he thinks no one will see it.)

He’s not sure if this means that Harry paints, or something.

Maybe it means something, maybe it’s just Harry taking the piss from his fake fucking grave. Doesn’t matter. Eggsy doesn’t care.

 

Roxy agrees to move into a nice little flat with him, and isn’t that a surprise?

He’d planned on warming her up to the idea over a couple weeks, but she’s all for it the second he starts hinting at it.

“I live with my parents. With my father,” she says over a half-empty pint.

And that’s fair, considering that her father’s a Kingsman. Grow up with the old man, live with him, work with him, soon enough, you’ll kill him.

“Just promise me you’ll use a coaster,” she says. “Everything else, I can handle.”

 

The flat they find is the nicest Eggsy’s ever been in, but he’s not sure for a while if Roxy’ll be willing to slum it so he can pay his half of the rent.

“Please, I’m tired of that whole hired help life,” she says, and he’s not so sure if he’s made some kind of mistake. But he trusts her with his life, and he might as well trust her in this.

There’s a fucking hilarious night where she tries to make boxed pasta and sets off the smoke alarm, but she’s not actually one of those totally useless posh types. Roxy’s good people.

Granted, her taste in furniture is...interesting.

Eggsy’s used to hand-me-downs and the occasional stolen vanity piece. If it does what it’s supposed to, he doesn’t care what it looks like. Even if it only mostly does what it’s supposed to. But Roxy’s got this odd collection of antique bits and modern scandinavian shite (what she insisted on putting together herself, and they’ve got an ashtray full of leftover screws from _that_ experiment, so he doesn’t trust the structural integrity of _anything_.)

It works, though. They eat takeout, they fight over the last of the hot water, they walk to Kingsman together. Eggsy’s lived with a woman his whole life, so he doesn’t even mind the knickers hanging off every surface on laundry day.

 

“Fraternization between Kingsmen is frowned upon,” Merlin tacks on to the end of a brief.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” He knows exactly what it means, obviously, but he’s kind of insulted. Mostly on Roxy’s part, honestly.

Merlin gives him a look. “You and Roxy. We’ve never had this kind of situation before—”

Eggsy snorts loudly, breaking into half a laugh.

“Fucking likely. All you public school boys? _Sure_ , there was never any fraternization.”

“That’s…” Merlin considers it, shrugs. “Fair. But I’ve been instructed to tell you that it won’t be tolerated. You will be removed from the field.”

Eggsy rolls his eyes. “Me and Roxy’s just mates, bruv. Never gonna happen.”

“Are you absolutely sure?”

“She’s fit, alright, but we ain’t like that. Not in a million years.”

“Good. That’s good.” Merlin scowls, which Eggsy is pretty sure is embarrassment. “There’s never been a female Kingsman. The older members aren’t quite sure what to make of her.”

Eggsy laughs. “Let them say that to her on the sparring mats. She’ll show them.”

 

Maybe they _are_ a little unusually close, but Eggsy thinks they’re just some kind of friendship soulmates. They’ve gotta be.

They end up taking a shower together after a joint mission that had them wandering through a cave for three days. They’re both totally rank, and they both call the first shower, but they’ve been awake the whole time and neither of them is particularly willing to fight for it. So they share. They pass each other the soap when the other asks, they scrub the grime off each other’s backs, and Roxy’s a lovely girl, but no part of Eggsy’s body takes an interest.

Honestly, he’s a little surprised that he doesn’t see Roxy in that way, cause he likes good-looking and dangerous, but he’s thankful for it. His other mates would judge him for watching as much Iron Chef as he does, or for learning to braid hair so he can do Daisy’s, but Roxy doesn’t judge. Not about anything.

He mentions once at a real club, which is something of an outing for them, that he might be looking for a bloke instead of a girl that night, and she doesn’t even blink. Actually, he’s pretty sure she doesn’t have any particular preferences either, but it can be hard to tell with girls.

Not that they do much in the way of pulling. It’s practice, mostly. A little bit of charm can go a long way in most situations.

 

His mum is doing much better with Dean far, far out of the picture. She doesn’t cry anymore, she takes care of herself.

She didn’t know Harry, so she doesn’t have a problem making the house her home. Daisy loves having the space to crawl around. She’s starting to hold onto the couches and try to walk, and it’s only a matter of time before she takes her first steps.

Harry’s room is unchanged.

There’s no guests to have over, not besides him, so his mum hasn’t touched it. Eggsy wanders in from time to time when he visits. Stands on the balcony, looking down at the road, the backs of houses, remembering when Harry stood where he stands, looking down on him like the almost-pocalypse was his fault. Fucking wanker. As if Eggsy would ever shoot JB.

He’s a prick, that’s all there is to it. Fucking off to who knows where. But no, it’s fine, it’s not like Eggsy ever wanted to see him again. Fucker.

 

 _Monaco 1991_ haunts him from the wall.

 

A year to the day Harry killed an entire church of arseholes, Merlin wordlessly sets two glasses down in front of them, pours them both a drink.

He doesn’t say _to Harry_ , but they both know. Of course they know.

Mourning him is a farce and they shouldn’t have to keep at it. It's not fair.

That night, Eggsy goes to his mum’s and starts looking through Harry’s old stuff for some kind of clue. The liquor’s the only thing he can come up with, but he’s pretty sure Harry’s smarter than that. But maybe he still has his creature comforts.

 

It’s just a side project.

A hobby.

 

It feels too easy, really, but then, Harry’s probably not expecting anyone to come looking for him, being fairly conclusively dead and all, headshot caught on video.

There’s a particular brandy Harry has a few bottles of stashed away, and it’s not ultra-rare, but it’s uncommon enough for him to track. A couple wines, too, and it takes a while, gathering all the information for the past year and change, convincing himself it’s worth a shot, at least.

There’s a few options, of course there are, but then there’s a few in Monaco.

Harry left him all the clues, really, which means either he absolutely doesn’t think anyone’ll come looking for him, or he wants them to.

 

But Eggsy doesn’t go to Monaco.

Maybe he doesn’t _want_ to find Harry. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe it’s better that he fucked off for good.

 

Part of him wants to tell Roxy about it, but he’s sure that at this point, he’ll just seem bonkers. It’s been too long now.

 

It stays tucked in the back of his head, waiting for never, until the inevitable happens.

There’s enough rich and powerful people in Monaco for Kingsman to turn a watchful eye in its direction, clever enough to have stayed off Valentine's list and escape the fireworks.

Merlin sends him to Monte Carlo to dig up whether or not a French arms dealer is trying to get going a genocide in Somalia. Charming bloke, Eggsy’s sure, and he’s been told to use _any and all_ means to get the information.

That never means torture, unfortunately.

Sometimes Eggsy just wants to beat the shit out of some megalomaniacal fuck, but as it happens, that tends to be somewhat dangerous, in the long term. Kingsman policy is to try to catch the bees with honey first before you can set their nest on fire.

 

Eggsy and Roxy go in as siblings. Merlin said it would be more suspicious for one of them to travel alone, especially considering their age. She’s his backup. Which, ordinarily, would be reversed, seeing as there’s more blokes who prefer a pretty girl than a boy, but that’s not Eggsy’s luck on this one.

Roxy’s probably better backup than he is anyway.

It had been very surprising to everyone at first that Eggsy is very, very good at playing a posh boy. He still finds it hilarious because he’s really just faking an accent, flashing a cocky grin every now and then, and being the biggest wanker he knows how to be.

Apparently, it's believable.

 

Together, he and Roxy are the perfect image of spoiled siblings with far too much disposable income and far too few responsibilities. They dress expensive and flashy, order too many drinks, gamble recklessly, and alternately flirt and put down the people around them. They fit right in at the casino.

The mark, Achille Lapointe, a disconcertingly beautiful man with very white teeth, plays poker at a table not far from where they sit at the bar. Eggsy makes sure that his body language towards Roxy isn’t romantic in any way and waits to be noticed. Thankfully, Kingsman medical agreed to let them field test a new compound to speed up how fast their bodies process alcohol, so Eggsy, three drinks in, has the liberty of _acting_ pissed rather than _being_ pissed.

It’s not long before Lapointe notices him, but it’s subtle. There’s no drink sent his way, no waiter saying that the gentleman at table five asks for his company, but Lapointe’s eyes are all over him.

“I think I’ve got him,” Eggsy says out of the corner of his mouth, a drink raised to his lips. Roxy makes a little show of finishing her drink and saying she’s going to head back to her room, leaving Eggsy alone to work his magic.

Lapointe looks at him still but doesn’t make any sort of move.

It’s up to Eggsy, then.

He only knows how to flirt with men in the most obvious ways, which involves doing some inappropriate things to his straw while keeping eye contact. The fine arch of one of Lapointe’s eyebrows rises, and Eggsy winks at him.

“Is this seat taken?” a German-accented voice asks at his other side, where Roxy was sitting.

“Thanks but no thanks,” Eggsy says, waving him off, not even looking at the man. He’s got Lapointe now; he’s just pulled aside a waiter. When he talks to the man, his eyes keep flicking back to Eggsy.

“I really _must_ insist.” The voice is not even vaguely German anymore, no, it’s clear Received Pronunciation, and Eggsy thinks he might know that voice. Well,  _knows_ , and he's going to keep his cool about it because he  _knew_ , didn't he?

He rolls his eyes pointedly, getting a little smirk from Lapointe, and turns.

“Fuck off, Harry,” is all he says before turning back.

There’s a little look of surprise that he catches, and it thrills him, honestly.

The waiter comes to him with a blank look, says, “The gentleman over there asks that you might have dinner with him tonight, the Churchill suite.”

“Tell him I’ll be there,” Eggsy says, doing that posh thing where he doesn’t look at the man like he’s a human being.

“ _Eggsy_ ,” Harry says at last, and Eggsy ignores him in favor of waving a few bills at the bartender. More than enough to cover and leave a decent tip, because if Kingsman’s paying, why not.

And he leaves.

 

He’s just outside the casino when Harry catches him.

“So you’re just going to run away from me, then, is that it?” Harry asks, falling in stride, and Eggsy stops abruptly.

“Were you expecting tears? Did you want me to go on about how much I _missed_ you, how nothing’s the same without you, how _happy_ I am that you’re alive? You’re outta luck, guv.”

Harry deflates. “You knew.”

“I went to Kentucky,” Eggsy says simply, giving him a look just _daring_ him to try to explain himself.

Eggsy starts walking.

It’s a second before Harry catches up again.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, a little too composed for Eggsy’s taste. “If it makes a difference, I really am.”

“Well, I’m not. The best thing about you fucking off is that no one can say it’s because of you when I do a damn good job. And I do, Harry, I _excel_.”

“Of course you do.”

Eggsy rolls his eyes, stopping again. “Will you just go ahead and fuck off again? Roxy and I have plans to check out the beach before I’ve gotta do my thing.” He keeps going, the hotel in sight.

“If by ‘do your thing,’ you mean attempt to seduce that vile man, then I’m afraid I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t know if you know this,” Eggsy says, “but I have this job where I have to deal with vile men. And I’d really appreciate it if you’d let me _do_ my fucking job. Which is none of your business anyway, seeing as you _quit_. With a very big lie. What a very honorable thing to do.”

“Please, Eggsy, I just ask that you let me talk to you for a moment.”

“If I wanted to talk to you, I would’ve gone looking for you. But I didn’t, and I don’t, so do us all a favor and crawl back to whatever hole you buried yourself in.”

Harry sighs a touch dramatically as they climb the steps into the Hotel de Paris. “You’re being unreasonable,” he says as they cross the gilded foyer to the bank of elevators.

“Oh, I’m the unreasonable one now? Really? That’s rich.” Eggsy jabs at the elevator button. “I’m not going to be grateful that you’re here, I’m not going to stroke your ego and lie and pretend I have any interest in seeing you again.”

The elevator doors open and they step inside. There’s a couple in it already, but Eggsy doesn’t have the patience to wait for the next one.

“Would you at least let me explain?” Harry asks quietly, but hard, frustrated. “Over dinner, perhaps.”

“I have plans. Indefinitely.”

The couple’s uncomfortable, it’s radiating off them, and the woman presses the button for the next floor.

“Don’t you dare go to that man’s room tonight,” Harry hisses.

The woman presses the button repeatedly.

“I’ll do whatever I want, and it’s none of your business,” Eggsy counters. “You made that very clear.”

The door opens and the couple slips out, relieved.

Eggsy crosses his arms and stares at the lights indicating what floor they’re on. The number starts going up again.

“Eggsy.”

He doesn’t reply, doesn’t look at Harry.

“Please.”

Still nothing.

“Are you trying to give me the silent treatment? Is that what this is? Very mature, Eggsy, bravo.”

They reach his floor and Harry’s _still_ following him, the stubborn wanker.

“Was I in some way unclear?” Eggsy asks as they get to his and Roxy’s door. “I told you to _fuck off_. Run along.”

As Eggsy pushes inside into the living area, Harry keeps going. “I’m not going to leave until you agree to just _listen_ to me,” he says.

Roxy’s got a gun trained on him, probably heard them before they even came in, but her look falls into pretty serious confusion when she sees who he’s with.

“Yeah, Harry’s been alive and kicking this whole time,” he explains quickly, waving it off, “thinks he really pulled one over on all of us, and isn’t that just like him?”

Roxy lowers the gun and Harry gestures to one of their chairs. “May I?”

“Of course not,” Eggsy tells him. “I told you to fuck off, not _come right in for tea_.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “We both know that if you wanted me to leave, you could have made an attempt at incapacitating me in the elevator or before I came into your room.”

Eggsy glares at him.

“He’s right, you know,” Roxy says, and Eggsy makes a noise of distress, falling into a chair.

“Whose side are you even on, Rox?”

“If I have to see that hideous stuffed creature every time I brush my teeth, then you have to admit that you missed him. Just a little.”

Harry’s face lights up. “You kept Mr. Pickles?”

“I couldn’t well taxidermy _you_ , so, you know,” Eggsy grumbles, “next best thing.”

“I did want to tell you,” Harry tells him, “but there’s only one way for a Kingsman to retire, and I could no longer serve to the best of my abilities.”

Eggsy narrows his eyes at him. “You’re retired?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not _that_ old,” Eggsy says, confused.

Roxy sighs loudly. “Eggsy. People have other reasons for retiring.” She gives him a look like he’s supposed to know what that means, but he doesn’t get it.

“I killed a lot of people in that church, Eggsy.”

“Yeah, but you killed a lot of people _before_ that, too, though. And it’s not like they were good people. Probably.”

“Yes, but I had a choice on missions. I’d weighed the decision before I killed them. I didn’t kill the people in the church by choice. I was made into a weapon, and it wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.”

That’s a little more real than Eggsy wanted, and it’s really why he was afraid of this, the talking bit. Where Harry makes him feel bad, and Eggsy forgives him for acting like a complete tosser for almost a year and a half.

Not happening.

“Fine. You can be retired all you want, but don’t go sticking your nose into my missions. And especially not when I’m trying to get my mark.”

Harry sighs, looking very put-upon. “You shouldn’t even be here. I told Merlin to send someone around Lapointe’s age, someone he could consider a peer. Obviously, he didn't listen to me.”

“I could be a peer,” Eggsy says indignantly, even though it’s maybe not entirely true.

“Lapointe has been in Monte Carlo for just over two weeks,” Harry says, fixing Eggsy with a stern look. “In that time, eleven young men, all of them slight, dark-haired and between twenty-two and twenty-six, have gone missing. All of them can be placed on Lapointe’s hotel floor via security cameras. Do you see why you’re not exactly the ideal candidate for the mission?”

Eggsy crosses his arms. “Are you saying I can’t take him?”

“That’s not at all—”

“Why are you looking at security camera footage if you’re retired?” Roxy asks. “Better, why are you telling Merlin who to send and where?”

“Yeah, what she said,” Eggsy tacks on.

Harry shrugs. “I’m in the habit of people-watching. I happened to notice Lapointe with several different young men on consecutive nights, one of which worked the Craps table, and not long after, I overheard one of the other dealers mention that someone hadn’t been to work in several nights. My curiosity was piqued, you could say. Old habits die hard and all of that.”

“I just can’t believe you think the wanker can best me,” Eggsy says, offended, really. “I _know_ he’s a terrorist, yeah?” Harry rolls his eyes, and Eggsy scowls at him. “You’re absolute shite at retiring, by the way.”

“Apparently so, considering that I’m going to have to come with you tonight.”

Eggsy just gapes at him.

“I don’t know if that’s the best idea,” Roxy tries.

“He certainly won’t let Eggsy out of his sight, and who knows what he’s planning. This is no longer a honeypot, not that it should have been from the start. You’re going to need my help.”

“The ever-loving fuck you think you’re gonna do to help?” Eggsy snaps at him.

Harry shrugs. “I’m going to be a peer.”

 

“When this all goes tits up, I’m gonna give you hell,” Eggsy hisses as they get to Lapointe’s door.

Harry says nothing, but Eggsy catches him rolling his eyes as he knocks.

It’s a second before Lapointe answers, but when he does, the moment he takes in Harry, his eyebrows shoot up his forehead.

“I’m afraid you have me at a loss, gentlemen,” he says in lightly accented English.

Harry places a hand on Eggsy’s shoulder that he forces himself not to petulantly shrug off. “I believe we have a common interest,” Harry says, and Jesus, is it loaded. Eggsy would’ve never thought Harry had a gift for innuendo, but apparently, he does. He really does.

Also, Eggsy’s pretty sure that he’s the trick in this whole scenario, which, charming, Harry, very charming. Pimping him out to someone who’s disappearing people, what a great way to get back into Eggsy’s good graces. Fucking wanker.

If only he could text Roxy or something. It’s all crap.

Inside, because Lapointe is stupid or thirsty enough to invite them in, they sit in the living room. Harry asks to sit, because apparently that’s something even retired arseholes do, but he has Eggsy sit on the arm of his chair.

“I understand you wish to become more familiar with James here,” Harry says, using his cover name. He touches Eggsy’s back, and at the very least, Eggsy’ll give him full marks for being skeevy. Doing a great job at that.

Lapointe crosses his legs. “What kind of negotiation are we having?”

Now, Eggsy will fuck a mark if he has to, and, on rare occasion, he’s enjoyed it, but this is something else entirely. He tunes it out, honestly, because it’s so _calm_ , so businesslike. It’s a meat market bargain, and he’s the meat.

“—very adaptable. What sort of evening did you have in mind?” Harry asks, and Eggsy’s not waiting for the answer.

In a smooth, swift motion, he pulls the pistol out of his boot and shoots Lapointe square in the forehead.

Harry sighs heavily. “I really did think you’d have somewhat more control than that.”

“Oh, fuck you!” Eggsy tells him, getting up. “That was utter shite, Harry.”

Harry tilts his head, and Eggsy can see him realizing he’d miscalculated Eggsy’s reaction. Well, fuck it.

“Maybe I could’ve been able to find something funny about all that a year and a half ago, but I didn’t sign up for it with you. You don’t get to come in and take over _my_ missions, and you certainly don’t get to— Just fuck you, Harry.” Eggsy gets out his phone, rings Roxy. “Hey Rox, I may have improvised a little. Help with the clean-up?”

“ _You just won me ten quid, so thanks. I_ told _Merlin you would kill him_.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m predictable, whatever,” Eggsy says, rolling his eyes. “Just come by with supplies. I made a bit of a mess. Thanks.” He hangs up.

“What percentage of your missions end with a kill?” Harry asks, and fuck him for listening in.

“Well, this one’s about to end in two if you don’t shut your cakehole.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Very mature.”

“How can you—” Eggsy breaks off with a frustrated noise and starts massaging his temples. “ _You said yourself_ you didn’t like being made into a weapon. The fuck you just do to me? If you’re trying to convince me to just leave you here to enjoy your fucking retirement, _believe_ me, there was never any chance I was gonna try and bring you back with us.”

“I apologize.”

Eggsy snorts. “Do you? Do you really? I’m having a hard fucking time believing it.”

“What is it going to take, then?” Harry asks, standing. “I’ve apologized several times now, and you’re entirely unwilling to even entertain the idea that I might mean it.”

There’s a second where Eggsy wants to just let everything go and believe him, but seeing him, all this anger he never realized just keeps coming up.

So Eggsy punches him right in the jaw.

A long time ago, Eggsy had a burning desire to fight Harry, to see if he could give him a run for his money. To have it out on the sparring mats until he’s satisfied with the outcome. But that was friendly competition, maybe even to impress him. This is something else.

When Harry stumbles back, surprised, Eggsy goes for him again.

This time, Harry catches his arm, but misses his knee, the elbow to his back when he doubles over.

Harry takes him down, though.

Right through the glass coffee table. Which is much more painful than it looks in the movies, Eggsy knows well.

Without hesitating, Eggsy slams a ceramic potpourri dish into Harry’s head, but it doesn’t have the force he’d like because Harry’s in the middle of twisting his arm around. Eggsy gets both legs on one side of Harry’s body, flips him off.

Eggsy tries to get to the end table, hoping he could use it as a blunt weapon, but Harry drags him back, the broken glass of the table crunch under his suit jacket. Pure hand-to-hand, then. Eggsy can best all of the current Kingsman, the exception being Roxy, who he wins against as often as he loses.

Harry’s got some mass on him, but Eggsy’s fast and flexible, can twist and turn out of his grip as easy as Harry can leverage himself on him.

It’s a stroke of luck, probably, that gets Eggsy’s legs around him, one arm wrenching Harry’s shoulder back, the other locked around his throat. It’s not stable, Harry still having the one free arm to jab his elbow behind himself into Eggsy’s ribs.

Harry grinds him back into the glass, and alright, the Kevlar’s keeping him from being sliced and diced in the important bits, but there’s a shard digging into his ear, and he knows he’s bleeding.

Still, he holds on, trying to choke Harry out, at least. Gritting his teeth, ignoring the little bursts of pain all over his body.

Which is when Roxy comes in, wheeling a suitcase behind her.

“Well, I’d like to say this is in anyway surprising, but I prefer not to lie unless strictly necessary.”

Ashamed, Eggsy loosens his grip. Their breathing is loud, labored.

“That was fast, Rox,” he says, trying for a cheeky smile.

“You made so much more of a mess, you know. We can’t replace that table.”

Harry edges away, rising to his feet, and Eggsy’s pleased to see that he’s bleeding from his mouth, hair thrown out of place. Eggsy gets to his feet, blood itching through his veins because he’s not _done_ yet.

When Harry starts finger-combing his hair back, Eggsy dead-legs him.

Roxy sighs loudly. “When you’re done, you can start on the bloodstains. I’m going to start packing.”

She heads off towards the bedroom. As soon as she’s gone, Harry knocks Eggsy’s legs from under him.

“You’re a fucking prick,” Eggsy tells him, panting a little, arse probably bruised.

“You’re better than I’d dared to hope,” Harry says.

Eggsy exhales slowly, leaning back against a chair leg. He shuts his eyes, swimming head tipping back. “It was too close range. It didn’t matter, it would’ve been the same.”

Harry makes a questioning noise.

“With JB, the test, everything. Blanks at that range would still be lethal.” Eggsy swallows. “I wanted to tell you that, before you left, but it all happened so fast, and I...didn’t. You were so fucking angry, and you didn’t come back.”

His throat burns, and he tells himself it’s exertion. Harry moves next to him, and there’s a hand on his head, and Eggsy lets go enough for his head to drop to Harry’s shoulder.

He just bites his lip and thinks real hard about being angry, he’s angry, and he’s going to stay angry.

And then he realizes that Harry is _hugging_ him?

He laughs. Of course he laughs. It’s laughable, the idea of Harry goddamn Hart expressing physical affection. A hand on the shoulder was the best he ever got, but now he’s got both of Harry’s arms around him, and one of his hands is just sort of stroking Eggsy’s hair, and he laughs that much harder.

Harry stiffens.

“Are you _laughing_?”

Eggsy sits up, trying to hold it back, failing. “Sorry, I just—” a thought hits him, and he can recover from this. “Wait, did you think I was crying? You thought I was crying on your shoulder? Oh, that’s rich.”

Harry’s face closes right off, and Eggsy regrets it immediately.

“No, wait, it’s just…”

There’s no good way to finish that.

“Perhaps I don’t really want you to forgive me. Because you shouldn’t,” Harry says with a half-mouthed smile. “You never needed me, and you’re better off with me gone.”

“I missed you,” Eggsy admits. “A little. But I still want to punch you.”

“Let’s clean this mess up, and I’ll let you have another go.”

Eggsy smirks. “You just want a rematch because I clearly won.”

“We’ll see who ends up pinned, won’t we?”

It’s not really an innuendo, but Eggsy’s head twists it into one anyway. It’s an interesting thought, even though Harry certainly didn’t mean it, and Eggsy doesn’t really want him to. It would be a strange, funny world where they were shagging.

“You made a right fucking mess of him, didn’t you?” Harry says, looking behind Lapointe’s chair. There’s a touch of pride in his voice, and Eggsy pointedly ignores it.


	2. the world was on fire

“Always fucking late,” Eggsy mutters, glancing at his watch for the fiftieth time. His leg jiggles unconsciously, masked by the vibrating hum of the plane's engine.

“Go make yourself a drink or something,” Roxy tells him. “He’s coming.”

Eggsy shakes his head. “He won’t. He’s skipping out on us, the prick. Not that I _want_ him to come with us, but he did say he would.”

“A gentleman calls ahead if he won’t make it,” Harry says, pulling a suitcase behind him into the plane. Eggsy at once calms and gets more tense.

“We still calling you a gentleman?”

Harry levels a dry look at him, then hoists his bag into an overhead compartment. "Call me what you like, just get this damn thing in the air."

“Better make me a drink, too,” Roxy says, exasperated, though Eggsy’s not quite sure why.

They’re in the car headed to Kingsman from the airport when Eggsy realizes just what it means for Harry to be back, all the holes they've filled, spaces where he can't fit anymore.

“You know, there’s no take-backs on a last will and testament,” he tells Harry. “You try to turn out me mum, we’re gonna have words.”

“I would do nothing of the sort,” Harry says, and Eggsy believes him, actually.

Eggsy’s also pretty sure that Harry doesn’t have a place to live, and he’s also pretty sure that the proper gentlemanly response to that would be to offer up a place to sleep at his and Roxy’s, but that’s never gonna happen. What a nightmare.

“Right on time,” Merlin says as Eggsy, Roxy, and Harry join him in the conference room. He doesn’t even blink at Harry, and Eggsy can feel that Harry’s at least a _little_ disappointed by that. “And how did we do?”

Eggsy looks down. “I may have eliminated the target. Sir.”

Merlin sighs. “Damn you. I had good money on Harry being the one to do it.”

“I think I should be offended,” Harry says, crossing his arms, and a frown sinks into his face. “Your whole plan was to have me return, wasn’t it?”

“We have a dreadful shortage of good agents,” Merlin explains, “and I’ve been pulling double-duty between my _actual_ duties and having to effectively be Arthur in the absence of an appropriate replacement.”

Harry makes a little humming noise. “It’s been a year and a half, and still, no Arthur? It doesn't sound like you've been working very hard at that.”

“You weren’t the only agent in the wrong place when Valentine’s SIM cards activated. We had four others, their combined death toll reaching just over a hundred for those two minutes. Three of them killed themselves, and the fourth, Ector, requested to be put on a deep cover assignment in Columbia. Taken to being a cartel torturer a little too keenly. To be honest, I’d rather not have him back. Besides that, we had three defect to MI-6 to uphold the Crown, what with the whole mess with naming Harry King Regent. And there’ve been casualties, of course.”

“Who does that leave us with, exactly?”

Merlin gestures at Eggsy and Roxy. “Besides these two and Ector, there’s Caradoc, Lionel, Percival and Bedivere.”

“Why have there been no new recruits? Why on Earth would you let this happen?” There’s a touch of panic in Harry’s voice, actually, and Eggsy’s sure that Harry knew all of the others, knew them well enough to be shaken.

“Do you think we have the resources to train right now?” Merlin asks, taking the offensive. “We can’t spare anyone, let alone myself, to stay with them for the duration of the training process, and furthermore, who would be nominated? Even if each current Kingsman were to put forward three or four candidates, you know how it works. The only people most of them even _know_ are family friends, most of whom are dead, imprisoned for the Valentine conspiracy, or hold a political office.”

“And it never occurred to you to sample from a different potential candidate pool,” Harry says with something like bitterness. “I dare you to say that it would be to our detriment.” He’s moved closer to Eggsy and oh, alright, that’s what they’re saying. Which makes Eggsy something of an ace in Harry's hand, which is more insulting than he remembers.

Merlin’s angry, and Eggsy gets it, he’s been here, he _knows_. “Of course I know that the ideal would be to expand our horizons, but unfortunately, most Kingsmen don’t have a variety of acquaintances, and I don’t have time to sift through fifty databases to get a good list together. _Maybe_ , if I didn’t have to captain this sinking ship, I might have the time.”

“I suppose that’s understandable,” Harry admits.

“Yes, it is, now are you taking the bloody job or not?”

“Of course I am.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

It’s weird for a moment, and Eggsy trades a look with Roxy.

“Come here, you insufferable prick,” Merlin says, and they’re already moving to each other. And they _hug_. It’s very weird.

Roxy feels him on this.

“Are we dismissed?” Roxy asks after a second.

Merlin waves them off. “Just send me your full mission reports by midnight.”

Once the doors close behind them, Eggsy lets himself have a little laugh. Roxy tries not to join him, but she gives in with a little giggle.

“You think we’re gonna be like that when we’re old?” he asks.

“I don’t exactly expect to make it to middle-aged.”

He shrugs. “Well, yeah, but if we did. We’ll still be friends, won’t we?”

“I hope so.” She looks sad, too sad, so he throws an arm around her shoulders.

“Come on, let’s go for a pint, yeah?”

Eggsy’s not sure about how to tell his mum that Harry’s back, so he just doesn’t.

This leads to him being _very_ surprised when he comes over, like he does every Friday night, and finds Harry sitting at the kitchen island. And he is peeling carrots. And talking to his mum. Who is laughing.

“Well this is a surprise,” Eggsy says as he comes in the room. He stops at Daisy’s high chair to pick her up and settle her on his hip. “Hello there, beautiful. This awful man hasn’t been bothering you, I hope.”

“ _Eggsy_ ,” his mother chides, “be nice to Mr. Hart.”

“It’s quite alright, ma’am,” Harry tells her. “I did take quite the vacation and left him to mind the shop, so to speak, without warning. He’s quite justified.”

“Yep,” Eggsy agrees, sitting Daisy on the counter to play pat-a-cake.

“Anyway,” Harry says, “as I was saying, Eggsy gave me the kick in the arse I needed to put that whole retirement nonsense behind me, and here we are. With the unfortunate side-effect that, legally, I’m deceased.”

“Where are you staying?” his mum asks, stirring something on the stove. Something that smells good.

“For the moment, at our headquarters. Of course, I’m driving our dear Merlin mad. We tried living together once, in the eighties, and, well, I believe most shared living arrangements don’t end in the building burnt to the ground. We paid for the reconstruction, of course, but let it be said that he and I are not particularly compatible flatmates.”

Eggsy doesn’t think anything of it at first, but then he realizes _headquarters_ and _Merlin_.

“Oh dear,” his mum says. She’s giggling, and, bugger it all but if she isn’t charmed by Harry. That’s his luck, ain’t it?

“That wasn’t even the worst of it, but _that’s_ a story for another time.”

“You had to know that would end terribly, with both of you in your line of work. I don’t know how Eggsy and that lovely girl manage.”

“Tailors aren’t exactly that competitive, mum,” Eggsy says because this is going somewhere not allowed.

His mum gives him a tired look. “I’ve known for a long time you ain’t a tailor, love. Mr. Hart explained the whole thing to me.”

“ _You_ ,” Eggsy says low. “We’re gonna have a talk about bringing me mum into things without talking to me about it.” That talk will mostly be Eggsy punching the daylights out of him.

“She recognized me from when I informed her of your father’s passing. Seeing as I introduced myself as your boss, she rightfully had suspicions. As for her safety, I guarantee you, this is the safest place in London.”

Eggsy glares at him.

“Also, I found his knife collection a few months back,” his mum says. “Behind the hallway mirror. All things considered, not the most surprising thing to happen in the past two years. That said, I’m very proud of you, love.”

When Eggsy looks at her, all he feels is guilty for not telling her. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want you to worry. What with dad and all.”

“We live in a dangerous world,” she says simply. “I can’t protect you walking down the street, but if this Kingsman lot can teach you to protect yourself, then I’m all for it.”

He wants to hug her, but Harry’s here and that feels weird. Harry just makes things weird.

“Why are you here anyway?” Eggsy asks him.

“I needed to pick up a couple things, and I thought that while I was here, I might let your mother know that I have no intention of reversing my will. It was only polite.”

“He’s a very kind man,” she says pointedly to Eggsy. He just rolls his eyes. “And I’d like to return that kindness. Seeing as it’s your house and all, I really must insist that you stay here. Your room hasn’t even been touched.”

“Oh, well, that’s certainly very generous,” Harry says, stumbling a little, which is only fair because Eggsy’s having trouble processing. “But I’ll find somewhere soon, it’s only a matter of time.”

“Stay until you find somewhere, then. I’m sure your Merlin would appreciate it, at the very least.”

“Are you sure it wouldn’t be too much of a burden?”

Eggsy looks between them, _appalled_ and _upset_ because this is _happening_ , this is really—

“It would be my pleasure, Mr. Hart.”

Oh God, this is going to be such an incredible nightmare.

Roxy laughs for a full three minutes when he tells her.

“I need you to find Harry a place to live,” Eggsy tells Merlin, slumped in a chair in his office-cave. “Like, now, please.”

“Saying please, are we? It must be desperate.”

“He’s staying at his old house. Me mum’s current house.” Merlin doesn’t say anything, so Eggsy repeats, “He’s staying with me mum!”

Merlin turns to him, blank. And then he smirks. “You better knock before you open any doors, then. Harry’s quite the old fox.” He winks for effect and Eggsy throws up a little.

There's no apology for it, no backtrack, so he just stares at Merlin, face stuck in a rictus of horror.

Merlin laughs. “You should see yourself, son.” He calms, levelling a gentle look. “I’m joking. I’m sure Harry won’t seduce your mother. I don’t think he even does that outside of missions. Used to be very good, though. The go-to for the tricky honeypots back in the day.”

“Harry? _Our_ Harry?” Eggsy asks, disbelieving.

“Harry Heart-throb, we used to call him.”

Eggsy snorts. “Now I _know_ you’re pulling my leg.”

“Well, we never said it to his face. Didn’t want him getting a big head about it.”

“I refuse to believe it.”

“We used to say, you haven’t been had until you’ve been _Galahad_.”

Eggsy’s about to projectile vomit or ask to see the tapes or something when a throat clears from the doorway.

“Do I want to ask?” Harry asks.

“Just telling the boy about your, ahem, _legacy_.”

“I swear to God, Harry,” Eggsy tells him, shaking his head, “if you flirt with me mum, if you so much as _look_ at her wrong, I’ll make sure you live only long enough to regret it.”

Harry looks at Merlin dryly. “Really? This is what you’re telling him?”

Merlin shrugs.

“I promise you, I have no intentions of flirting with your mother,” Harry tells Eggsy, then turns back to Merlin. “ _You_ are meddling. You’re a meddler, and no one appreciates it.”

“I’m having a great time,” Merlin says, smirking. “And you make it so easy. Tell me, Eggsy, has he ever told you the one about the son of the Danish PM?”

“Galahad, I think you’re due back for a training circuit with Lancelot,” Harry says quickly, and Eggsy makes a note to ask Merlin about that later.

“Right then. See ya, guv,” Eggsy says, throwing a cheeky wave behind him.

Once the thought gets in his head, though, Eggsy’s number one fear is his mum getting with Harry.

“You were flirting with him,” Eggsy says over coffee one morning just after Harry’s left.

Eggsy might be spending a little extra time at his mum’s to keep an eye out.

“I wasn’t flirting with him,” his mum says, but she’s got this little smile. Eggsy doesn’t like what it means.

“Do you...do you _fancy_ Harry Hart?”

His mum just chuckles.

“That’s so, so, so wrong,” he says, grimacing. “One, he’s Harry. Two, he’s far too old for you. Three, he’s Harry, who in addition to being something of a fantastic prick is also technically my boss. And four, there are plenty of other handsome, well-off men out there, so don’t go limiting yourself.”

His mum blinks at him and then very suddenly busts out laughing.

Real laughing, too, wiping her eyes and all that.

And Eggsy’s missing something.

“I don’t think I’m exactly his type,” she says, and laughs that much harder.

“Well, fuck him then. You’re beautiful and amazing and fuck him if he can’t see that.”

She covers her mouth, reigning it in, and says, “That’s very sweet, love, but you don’t have to worry about any of it seeing as Harry’s gay.”

Eggsy frowns, face twisting with it. “I don’t believe that— I mean, wouldn’t I know he was? There’s no way.”

She gives him a look, and he reads in it very clearly, _It’s 2017, Eggsy, don’t you go stereotyping people._

“But how do you know? Did he say? I can’t believe he’d say.”

“Sort of.” His mum shrugs. “He mentioned he’d been seeing someone quite a while back, said he was the only person he’d been with outside of Kingsman. Well, not exactly outside Kingsman, I suppose.”

It’s a lot to process.

“Are you telling me that you and Harry chat about old flames over biscuits? Is that what this world’s come to?”

She just shrugs again.

“I really hope I wake up soon, because this is the strangest trip.” He finishes his coffee. “You know what? I should go. I’ll see you soon.”

He kisses her cheek as he flees, really.

“Did you know Harry’s a pouf?” Eggsy asks Roxy as they run side by side around the Kingsman Estate property.

“Sounding a bit judgemental there.”

Eggsy makes a noise of disagreement. “I don’t have a _problem_ with it, obviously. I just didn’t know. Usually I can tell. Not with him.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

They take a turn into the woods, thicker groundcover crunching under their boots.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know,” she says. “You’re weird about him now.”

“Weird? I am not weird about Harry fucking Hart, I can promise you that.”

She sighs, panting a little. “That’s what I mean. You get so defensive with him. In the sense that the best defense is a good offense. I don’t see why.”

“That’s….” He doesn’t actually know how to finish that.

“Look, Harry’s back, for good. Everyone else is returning to how it was. Except you. You’re so angry. And I get it. He abandoned you. But he’s sorry. Says it all the time. And he’s not leaving again. So do what you have to. Have it out or whatever. Resolve it. Move on.”

“Fine. Maybe I will.” He ducks to avoid a low hanging branch. “Still can’t believe I missed he’s a pouf.”

“Probably because you don’t actually pay any attention to him. You just get angry in his general direction.”

That’s fair.

Maybe he should actually confront the problem.

It doesn’t happen like that, though. Because the next time he really sees Harry, he’s holding a fussy Daisy, and she’s big enough that when she struggles, she really struggles.

“I’m sorry, love,” his mum says, putting on an earring. “Harry said he’d watch her, so you can pass her off if you need, but do you think you could pop down to the shops? I meant to, but if I don’t get to this interview, I’m fucked.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” he says, wishing for the days when he could calm Daisy with just a pacifier. “Good luck!”

“Thanks! The list is next to the kettle.” She kisses his forehead and leaves, and he takes the squirming Daisy to Harry’s study.

Harry’s at his desk, doing something boring, and he’s wearing real glasses, not the Kingsman ones.

“You think you could watch her while I run some errands?”

Daisy wrestles herself out of his grasp and toddles over to Harry. “Hawwy!” she says, making grabby hands so he’ll pick her up.

“Not a problem. Where are you going? I’ve been needing to go to the market, actually. Could I tag along?”

Eggsy shrugs, trying not to be too much of a prick. “I guess.”

And that’s how they end up in the shop standing in front of the great wall of pasta.

“What the fuck is a farfalle?” Eggsy asks, grimacing.

The annoying little beeps from the phone game he gave to Daisy are making him want to kill someone, but it’ll keep her busy until they get home, he’ll suffer.

“Was that rhetorical?” Harry asks, and alright, the box has a picture on it.

“I just don’t get how you can spend so long looking at pastas.”

Harry makes a noncommittal noise, a hand going to Eggsy’s back to move him out of his way. “I feel I’m not pulling my weight in the cooking department.”

“You can cook?” That’s genuinely surprising.

“Not particularly, but persistence is the key to success.”

Eggsy smiles to himself. “You don’t have to cook, you know.”

“It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Just get takeout or something,” Eggsy says. “Probably gonna be better than whatever you can come up with.”

Harry turns a glare on him. “I can follow a recipe.”

“Oh yeah?” Eggsy says with a little smirk. “Cos I heard from Merlin that the last time you tried to cook, you burnt an apartment building down around your ears.”

“You’re insufferable.”

Eggsy hip checks him. “Stuck with me, though, ain’t ya?”

Harry gives him a dry look and Eggsy almost misses the woman and her little girl coming down the aisle.

“Mummy, how did those men make a baby?” the little girl says, and Eggsy snickers. And then he realizes that the girl is talking about him. And Harry.

“They don’t, love,” the woman says, throwing them an apologetic look. “Come on, mind your business.”

And because Eggsy can’t resist, he says, “We sure do try, though, don’t we, love?” elbowing Harry in the ribs.

The woman looks a little alarmed and quickens her pace down the aisle, and it’s totally worth it. Harry’s face is all stony, and Eggsy knows that means he’s well perturbed.

“You scandalized that poor child,” Harry says at last.

“Her? Nah, went right over her head.”

Harry sighs. “I can’t take you anywhere, can I?”

“Not if you’re gonna leave your sense of adventure at home.”

There’s a moment where Harry grumbles about him to the pasta, and then he huffs. “Fuck it. I’ll order takeout.”

“Good man,” Eggsy says, clapping him on the shoulder as he starts rolling the cart down the aisle like a little black bespoke storm cloud.

Harry is exhausting, but he also buys everything, which is fantastic but for the clerk very clearly wondering if they’re father and son or...not. It takes a lot of self-control for Eggsy to keep himself from implying that Harry is his sugar daddy. Which would be a great opportunity to watch Harry stew but perhaps also unfair. Well, not too unfair.

“Thank you for allowing me to accompany you,” Harry says as they’ve gotten the last of it into the fridge.

He’s trying to be nice, really is, but something in Eggsy just bristles at it.

This is unstable, really. Roxy was right. (Of course she was.)

“Are you working from here this morning?” Eggsy asks.

“I was going to go in at lunch. After your mother’s returned. It’s a slow business day, so to speak.”

Eggsy nods to himself. “Alright, well, if you’re not busy, I was wondering…” Christ, there’s no way to make it not sound stupid, is there?

“Yes?”

“Would you spar with me this afternoon?”

Harry blinks, surprised. “Of course. Around three?”

“Yeah, alright.”

“Excellent.”

Harry nods once and alright, this interaction is over, time to remove himself. ASAP.

Harry meets him in the sparring room actually _at three_ , which is probably the most surprising thing of all. Also, he’s traded in his suit for the more practical loose silk trousers and cotton shirt that most wear in the gym, which is something Eggsy's never seen him in. It's weird, that's for sure.

Eggsy and Roxy are much cooler and better looking, favoring joggers and tanks because they’re young, sexy spies and no one can stop them rubbing it in everyone else’s faces. Admittedly, the pool of “everyone else” is rather small, but still.

“Hand to hand?” Harry asks, circling the mats.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Eggsy circles him right back, stepping up, barefoot, onto the mats. Harry’s looking very calm, glasses gone, that sort of low-key elegance he had in Monte Carlo.

It’s infuriating.

Eggsy is going to win. No, he’s going to humiliate. And maybe they’ll be even.

“You think you’re ready to get out from behind that desk?” Eggsy taunts, and the look he gets in response is both dry and confident.

“I was never particularly cut out for desk work.”

He’s approaching slow, and Eggsy knows what he’s doing.

“Well, come on, then,” Eggsy tells him. “Show us what you got, yeah?”

When Harry gives a half-hearted swing, Eggsy ducks out of the way easily, hopping from foot to foot. He circles Harry, grinning. That’s more of a taunt than anything else, and he can tell it’s working by the way Harry’s jaw clenches. Good.

Eggsy hums something like a laugh and Harry attacks for real, a quick feint left and then a hard shove with the heel of his palm with on the right, sneaking his foot out so Eggsy stumbles.

Now they’re getting somewhere.

When Eggsy moves to the offensive, Harry blocks his blows easily, and that’s fine. He’s not giving it all he’s got yet, just warming up.

Harry blocks a sudden kick, but that puts him off-balance enough for Eggsy to get a good lick in, right to the face. Eggsy can see him feeling around the inside of his cheek for a wound, and Harry’s grinning, this dark kind of grin. Maybe he can taste blood. It's a shark thing, he saw it the first day they met, how he gets when he's ready to fuck someone up.

At least now, Harry’s not holding back anymore.

They come at each other hard, not hard enough for permanent damage, but enough to bruise, enough to make a point. It’ll hurt in the morning, certainly. For now, Eggsy pushes it from his head because he knows how to take a punch or a few. But it seems that Harry's the same way.

It’s not too long before Harry gets him from behind, and Eggsy uses his leverage to bring them both down.

Things turn chaotic very soon after.

Eggsy’s really trying to get in any kind of blow he can, but Harry’s good at avoiding it and redirecting. It’s unsatisfying, at the very least, and Eggsy abandons the attempt in favor of wrestling.

Maybe not the smartest idea because Harry’s got about five inches and a good few kilos on him. Eggsy doesn’t keep the upperhand for long at all.

Harry gets him in this hold where he’s on his back but one arm is twisted underneath, legs pinned, and this is where he should probably lose. This is where it makes a difference that Harry’s bigger than him. Harry’s weight over him is _just_ too much to buck off, limbs long enough to cage him in effectively.

Time for a new tactic.

He’s got a couple options, some more petty than others. Licking worked on Roxy once, but not the second time. But boy, did she startle. That’s not the one, though. Harry probably wouldn’t even blink.

There _is_ something he could do, but it’s risky.

Potentially worth it, depending on how well he can make it clear that it's not real after the fact. But it's that or lose, and Eggsy's not ready to throw in the towel yet.

“Got me where you want me, huh, guv?” he says, a little breathy from the effort.

“Just say _when_ ,” Harry tells him, far too confident.

Eggsy smirks at him. “Think I’m just fine right where I am, thanks.” And with that, he rolls his hips upward, just the once, just enough for it to be unmistakable.

Harry’s face goes very suddenly blank and where he was tensed to keep Eggsy down, he loosens, just enough that Eggsy can roll them, twist around to get an arm wrenched behind him and a knee on his throat.

“ _Just say when_ ,” Eggsy repeats, and after a moment, he does.

Eggsy lets him up, panting a bit, though not quite as much as Harry. His sweat is cool in the air conditioning.

“That was cheeky,” Harry says at last, running the back of his arm across his mouth. There’s something of a smirk in his eyes.

“Working with what I got, yeah?” Eggsy gets to his feet, does the gentlemanly thing and holds out a hand to help Harry up.

Harry, the fucking wanker, takes it, yanks him back down to the mats. “I don’t think we’re quite done yet, do you?” Pain bursts through his mouth when he hits, biting through his cheek.

Eggsy spits a bit of blood, grins. “Oh no, we’re nowhere near done.” He lunges, grabs at Harry hard enough to hurt. It might not be possible, but he wants to rip him apart. Wants him to _hurt_ , to feel what it’s like to have something ripped from his body.

It’s a blur of pain punctuated by triumph, twisting and rolling on the mats, neither of them getting a good hold of the other. Harry gets on him, but Eggsy, in a burst, flips him over his head, rolling with it until he finishes seated on Harry’s chest. Thank God for gymnastics.

It doesn’t last long, he doesn’t have the mass to pin Harry down for long, and a sharp blow near his kidney puts him at a disadvantage.

Harry pins him, belly to the mats, and he’s about to try to buck him off, squirm free if that doesn’t work, but suddenly his scalp is on fire. He goes still without giving his body permission to do it.

“What do you want, hmm?” Harry asks, panting against his ear. “Do you want to win? To lose? What?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Eggsy grits out. He’s paralyzed, the fist in his hair like a kill switch, and he’s gonna have to do something about that for the future.

“Figure it out.”

Eggsy tries to get his hands under himself, but Harry leans into his back. “Oh, fuck you.”

“Is that an exclamation or an answer?” It comes out sarcastic, but the way it hangs is real question.

“You ruin _everything_ ,” Eggsy tells him, and Harry’s hold on him loosens, a little at first, and then all the way, he’s rolling onto his back, his far shoulder hitting the mat too hard. The hot rush of blood to his scalp makes Eggsy’s eyes water.

Harry lets out a heavy breath, says, “I suppose that’s true.”

The way he says it makes Eggsy almost feel bad, so he glares at him.

“I’m sorry I abandoned you,” Harry says.

“No, _no_ , that’s not it.” He makes an exasperated noise, scrubbing his hands over his face. “No one ever believed in me when they didn’t have to before you. I know that doesn’t make any sense to you, probably grew up with everyone telling you how great you’d be, but even my mum stopped thinking I could be something. You let me have that, and then you took it away. It’s worse, knowing what it’s like.”

Harry gives him this smile, slow and sad, his hand rising into the air and then falling back to his chest. “I never stopped believing in you, Eggsy.”

It becomes _really_ clear that the soreness in his throat isn’t from breathing too hard, and he buries his face in his arm when his eyes get hot. The weight of a hand falls to his shoulder, and Eggsy takes in a deep, deep breath, lets it out slowly, and he doesn’t cry.

There’s a mission in Belarus, and after the debrief, Roxy hugs him around the shoulders.

“I’m proud of you,” she says, and he knows it’s because he didn’t spend the whole debrief thinking about how to turn an ordinary stylo into a lethal weapon. Really, her being proud of him is almost better than whatever his mess was with Harry easing up.

Now that it’s gone, he can tell how much tension there was, and he regrets it, for Roxy, for Merlin, for the others.

After Belarus, and he makes it out of that one with the objective accomplished without a single kill, Roxy buys him a pint and they flirt with people they have no intention of taking to bed. Later, much later, they lean on each other the whole way home.

“I’ve never had a best friend before,” Roxy tells him as she kicks off her skinny jeans.

Eggsy comes over, falling onto his bum, and takes off her high heel so she can _actually_ get her jeans off. “I wouldn’t give you up for the world,” he tells her, and pats her knee.

“You’re a bit of a hypocrite,” Eggsy tells Merlin one afternoon. He always makes sure to drop in a couple times a week to drive Merlin bonkers. Actually, he thinks Merlin’s rather fond of him, but he doesn’t want to jinx it.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Merlin says, otherwise ignoring him. He’s drinking from that stupid Disney cup.

Eggsy smirks, lounging in his chair. “I mean about that time you got all _oh you and Roxy are fraternizing, bad Eggsy_ on me. Pretty rich considering that you used to shag Harry.”

He says that at just the wrong time and Merlin spits tea all over the computer screen in front of him, coughing wildly. He grabs a towel to frantically wipe it up, still coughing, face going red.

“You okay, mate?”

Merlin gets the coughing under control, takes a deep breath. “I have absolutely never shagged Harry, and I swear, if he fed you that, I’m gonna—”

“No, no, he didn’t say, but really? Because I was under the impression that he and a Kingsman were…” He makes a crude gesture, and Merlin sighs.

“Ah, yes. That. Well, if you want to know about it, you’ll have to ask him. And for God’s sake, do it more politely.”

Eggsy gives him a look. “Why can’t you just tell me?”

“It’s not my place.”

“Bollocks. You tell me all sorts of shite about him all the time.”

“The thing is,” Merlin says slowly, “is that the other Kingsman was lost in the line of duty, so if you want to know any more than that, you’ll have to ask Harry himself. Which you absolutely shouldn't do. It’s just not polite.”

“Still a hypocrite.”

“Please. Percival used some...well, _leverage_ against me to interrogate you about Roxy. I don’t care either way who’s shagging who, so long as I don’t have to see it. And I won’t be seeing it, will I, Eggsy? Because you’ll take your glasses off if anything happens, won’t you?”

Eggsy rolls his eyes. “I told you, Merlin, Roxy and I ain’t like that.”

“Not Roxy. Just. Any...person you choose to get on with, I don’t want to see it. I really, really don’t. If anything happens on a mission, I don’t want to have even a sneaking suspicion. Or even not on a mission. Anywhere it happens, I don’t want to know about it. Got it?”

“Are you alright?” Eggsy asks, smiling a little if only because he’s confused and Merlin is very serious.

“We’re not having this conversation again. Go. You’ve done enough damage for the afternoon.”  Eggsy chuckles and hops up. “And really? You thought Harry and I were a thing? You’re a terrible spy. If it were up to me, I’d send you through training again.”

Eggsy rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

“But I’m sure if you suggested it to him, his reaction would be well worth it. You can have the glasses on for _that_ , if you wish.”

“That a suggestion or a request?”

Merlin waves him away. “Make of it what you will.”

He and Harry are having a drink after his mum’s gone to bed, and Eggsy just comes out with it, asks, “Were you shagging my dad?”

Harry coughs, surprised, but he keeps his cool. “ _God_ , no. Why would you ever think that?” The way he says it makes Eggsy believe him, but that leaves him with a blank.

“It’s nothing, I just…” Harry’s waiting on it, not mad or anything, just confused. “I heard something. And now I can’t say it because I’m a complete tosser for bringing it up, so let’s just forget I said anything, yeah?”

“You might as well go ahead and tell me what you heard.”

Eggsy looks down at his hands in his lap. “I heard you was with another Kingsman once upon a time, so I asked Merlin if it was him—” Harry snorts gracelessly “—but it wasn’t, and he said that I should ask you. And be nice about it because he’s... well, not with us. And you just said once that you was looking after me for my father, so I thought….”

“I see.” Harry holds on that a long time, then finishes his drink far too quickly for the quality of the Scotch. “He was Roxy’s predecessor, actually.”

He makes it sound like he’s going to continue, but that’s it. That’s all he gets. And Eggsy’s not about to ask for more, he’s not cruel. But there’s nothing to fill the silence with. Their glasses are empty; those he can fill.

“It’s the stupidest thing in the world to love a Kingsman,” Harry says as Eggsy’s mid-pour, his back to him. Eggsy pauses, considering it. It’s true, really. From the outside, you have to love a liar, and from the inside, well, you have to be able to love someone with blood on their hands. Someone who could very easily be dead next week.

“Why do it?” Eggsy asks as he hands Harry his glass.

“Well, we don’t have much of a choice, do we?” Harry swirls the Scotch around his glass, studying it a little too intently. “We’re the only people we know. And we do _know_ each other, better than normal people know each other. It’s something to look at someone you love when they know the worst thing you’ve done and they love you anyway. Wouldn’t trade that for the world.”

This is where Eggsy feels impossibly young. Sure, he’s dated girls, shagged probably too many people, but he doesn’t know what it’s like. To love someone who loves you. He’s smarter than that. When you love people, it hurts too much when they die. It’s that simple. It fucked up his mother, and Harry too, apparently.

“I think it’s best to just stay away from all that rubbish,” Eggsy says. “Who really needs it, anyways?”

Harry’s looking at him now, head cocked to one side. “I don’t really think it’s that simple. I think that if you know someone you care about in any way at all, if you really know them, you have to love them.”

“No, there’s always a choice there. Fuck, I could know Roxy better than anyone, but that doesn’t change the fact that she and I would probably rather die than snog each other.” Eggsy shrugs. “Anyway, you wouldn’t want to know someone that well in the first place unless you loved them a bit first. It’s the chicken-egg debate. The answer is evolution, isn’t it?”

Harry blinks a couple times, considering it, then shrugs. “I suppose.”

It gets quiet again, and it feels heavy, too heavy, so Eggsy shakes it up. “You know, when I accused Merlin of shagging you, he sprayed his tea everywhere.”

Harry smiles. “I would’ve liked to see that.”

Eggsy settles because talk about Merlin is safe. So he asks for stories, and he gets them, and the night holds itself together.

His mum got the job. She’s a receptionist at the hospital, and she hasn’t been that happy in a long time. She works nights, so usually, either Eggsy or Harry can be there while Daisy sleeps, but they have child care, too, so it’s not the end of the world if Eggsy’s in Beijing and Harry gets stuck with Merlin all night, working on the selection process for the new recruits. Which is a fucking mess.

They had to put it to a vote, but they’re not doing the whole sponsor thing anymore. They’re going through military records, school records, the whole lot, to put together a list of twenty candidates based on abilities alone. They’ll narrow it down to something like four, start rebuilding their ranks.

They’ve been looking at international recruits, too, which is why the whole thing is taking so bloody long. They can't agree on anything, both sure they're right on how to go about things. Eggsy sat in on Merlin and Harry once, and he was pretty sure it was about to come to blows.

The next time, he brought Roxy and popcorn.

Eggsy tries not to think about how it took two years for them to recover from the almost-pocalypse. How they’re lucky they’re not where they came from, because he knows what it’s like. The estates were barrels full of rats, and only the strongest survived. Britain’s better off than most places, but it’s still politically unstable, government benefits waxing and waning erratically, everyone’s scared of their neighbor, their brother, their child.

That’s not something Kingsman can fix.

They only have international missions these days. It’s better than having to face the fact that they’re fucked, they’re all fucked, and they’re not getting unfucked any time soon.


	3. the killer in me is the killer in you

Roxy likes to flirt with Merlin.

Not that she’s got a thing for him or anything, and he knows it’s not serious, but sometimes he stutters or his ears go pink.

Roxy likes to make him human because he’s often not.

He sleeps on a futon in his office and he’s stuck being the handler for _all_ of them, which means he has to be ready to be remote assistance for Kingsmen in different time zones. That, and the ever-ongoing trainee-selection (Eggsy’s pretty sure they’ve got their candidates, they just don’t have time to run them through the training process) and monitoring all sorts of information coming in from everywhere about political movements and unrest, a barrage of problems in their turbulent world, so he and Harry can narrow down what to do and who to send where.

It’s a mess, and Eggsy feels sorry for him.

And it’s nice when Roxy flirts, because for a moment, Merlin is not the stretched-thin person keeping them all together.

“You should put this all on hold,” Eggsy tells Merlin on one of his little visits. There’s a lot of them, actually, because while he’d think discord would mean back-to-back missions, there’s too much and things are changing to rapidly. Intel becomes outdated in hours.

Merlin looks up from where he’s hacking into the database for the American Presidential Fitness Exam results, something of a desperate effort. “Put _what_ on hold?”

“Stop looking for field agents. Find yourself an assistant or two or five so you can sleep more than two hours at a time.” That makes it sound like he cares too much, so Eggsy shrugs casually, finishes with, “You’re _way_ too old for this.”

Merlin squints at him for a little bit.

“Admit it, you could use some help.”

“Maybe.”

Merlin’s got a thoughtful look, though, and when he turns back to his computers, he waves Eggsy away silently.

His mum is always trying to get him to bring Roxy over, but he just has this image of sitting at Harry’s dining table with the three of them, and it’s nauseating for some reason.

It has to happen eventually, though. There’s no escaping it.

“Say hi to Roxy, Daisy,” Eggsy says, waving her little hand for her.

“Hi Wozzy,” Daisy says.

It’s a start.

Roxy waves, a tight smile on her face. She’s explained it to him before, that her sister was just a year younger than her, and they’d had a nanny, and she’s honestly never had to interact with children. They terrify her, really. Eggsy’s not going to make her hold Daisy or anything, but a little familiarity would be good for her.

“Roxy, love, would you like a glass of wine?” his mum asks. “I picked up a box the other day, and it’s fantastic.” For half a second, Eggsy’s embarrassed, sure that Roxy didn’t even know that wine came in boxes, but he’s not going to be. He knows better than to try to fake something for her.

“I’d love one, thank you,” Roxy says, and she seems like she means it.

His mum gets down a couple glasses, and she turns to Eggsy. “Sweetheart, would you give Harry a ring? He’s late, even for him.”

“About that,” Eggsy says, looking away. “He said he might not make it. He and Merlin are—”

“Oh no no no. This is the first night we were all supposed to have off and he’s not backing out of it. We’re going to sit down and have a meal together, whether he likes it or not. Fuck it, I’ll ring him.”

Eggsy trades a grin with Roxy.

Twenty minutes later, Harry comes in looking properly apologetic.

They all sit and eat together, and it’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened. There’s quite the high point when Daisy rubs potatoes on Harry’s face because she’s trying to help him eat. Harry’s a good sport about it, even says _thank you_ , and it’s a little charming, to be honest.

His mum _loves_ Roxy, of course she does. Tells her to come over whenever, laments that Eggsy won’t marry her, all of it.

There’s this feeling, warm and a little strange, and it takes him a while to realize that it’s _family_. It’s terrifying, actually. He doesn’t want to jinx it, but he’s happy. He feels safe. He wants that, and he didn’t even realize it.

When it’s late and Daisy is snoozing in Eggsy’s lap, his mum calls it. “I’m gonna take this one here to bed and turn in. Boys, please forgo your male bonding rituals. We have a guest.” Daisy in her arms, she kisses both Eggsy and Harry on the cheek and heads to the stairs.

Roxy’s eyebrows are high and she’s smirking. “Male bonding rituals?”

His mum appears in the doorway, rolling her eyes. “I think they just drink and talk about boys, honestly.” That’s not true, not at all, and he really doesn’t deserve to be embarrassed like this. Harry’s his boss, it’s just not right.

“Well, I’m knackered,” Eggsy says quickly. “We should head on home. But this was alright, yeah?”

“It was,” Harry says, and Eggsy can’t quite read him.

This is the part where they actually say goodbye, and Eggsy’s drawing a blank. Usually, he’s tired and a little bit drunk when he walks on home, and he’s not sure how they do this. Feeling very weird about it, he sticks out a hand. Harry shakes it, face blank, and gives a curt nod.

Eggsy pretty much drags Roxy out the door.

Out on the pavement, she nudges him in the side. “What was that, hmm? You got very weird all of a sudden. I thought you and Harry were getting along?”

Walking quickly towards their flat, Eggsy blinks, eyes burning a little in the crisp air. Roxy catches up with him a second later.

“Talk to me.”

“We _were_ getting along. I just never found a good way to drop in there that I’m occasionally partial to a fit bloke. Without it being weird, you know?”

Roxy huffs out an exasperated noise. “I think he could’ve guessed. And anyway, it wasn’t weird until you got weird. And you did, you really did.”

“That’s really helping, thanks.”

“I’m just saying, don’t let one moment sour everything,” she says. “So you both happen to be men interested in men. That’s not the end of the world.”

He sighs. “I can’t explain it, it’s just...it’s like I lied to him. Which I didn’t, I never said I wasn’t like that, but it’s a trust thing.”

“You’re very sweet,” Roxy tells him, and he doesn’t know what to do with that, so he shoves her a little, and she laughs, and he hopes it’s all going to be fine.

There are two uniform-clad strangers in Merlin’s office, and that gives Eggsy pause.

“What’s going on?” he asks slowly, eyeing over the women for weapons. They seem to be clean.

“I followed your advice,” Merlin says. “Meet Morgana and Morgause. I just broke them out of prison.”

Eggsy hopes that his face is conveying just how bad an idea he thinks that is. “Why, exactly, were they in prison?”

“Morgana may have leaked some particularly confidential government information to the public. Morgause built firewalls to protect her anonymity for eleven months, with several nations’ best working to track them down.”

“Don’t fuck with you, got it,” Eggsy tells them. “Galahad, by the way. Resident genius, arguably the best looking, probably the highest kill count.”

“I don’t know about that,” Harry says from the corner, and Jesus, Eggsy didn’t even notice the sneaky motherfucker. “But it’s not a title you want to be competing for.”

“Thanks for that, mate, really.” Eggsy shoves his hands in his pockets, giving the women a sheepish grin. They don’t look particularly impressed, anyway.

“It was nice to meet you, ladies,” Harry says. “I’m certain you’ll make an excellent addition to our team. Don’t let Merlin scare you off.”

He heads for the door and as soon as he’s out, Eggsy turns on his heel and goes to catch up with him.

“So I was thinking,” Eggsy says, getting his attention, “do you have a lot to do tonight? Because if not, you know, we could go for a pint.” He sounds pathetic, really, but he’s trying, and he doesn’t want to come out and say anything.

“I don’t know.”

That’s all he fucking gets.

Eggsy rolls his eyes, walking fast because Harry has some long fucking legs and he’s walking quickly on purpose, the wanker.

“Look, I was weird the other night. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time.”

Harry stops. “What is your objective?”

For a second, Eggsy flounders, but he says, “My fucking objective? I just want that one good day we had before my final task. I want you to show me the proper way to pour fancy wines, and I want you to tell me about all your missions, and I want to convince you to give Kanye West a real listen. That’s all. I just want it all back.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Harry says slowly. “I’m supposed to be your superior, not your mentor or your friend. Already, I’ve allowed our professionalism as an organization to fall by the wayside. It’s all starting to fall apart, and we can’t rebuild on it.”

“And why the fuck not?”

Harry frowns. “Have you not been listening? I just—”

“I’m serious, Harry. Fuck the old ways, fuck it all. It’s all a hypocritical load of shite anyway. We’re supposed to be like the knights of the stories and all, but how come Arthur sits at the head of the table? It’s all about hierarchy. It’s bollocks.”

“Oh, and what’s the alternative? You just run around and do whatever you please?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” Eggsy tells him. “There’s not a lot of us left, yeah? We don’t really have much in the way of people outside of here. We’re all we’ve got, so let’s act like it. There’s maybe ten of us now, and if we can’t come together, this whole thing is just going to fall apart.”

Harry looks at him for a long time, jaw set, with something softening in his eyes. At last, he says, “I suppose we could go for that pint.”

Eggsy grins at him. “Yeah? Alright, yeah.”

For a moment, Eggsy misses the Black Prince, misses Ryan and Jamal, but he’s smarter than to go back there. People are afraid of him.

He and Harry end up tucked away in a little booth in the corner of some place not far from Harry’s. The booth is in the back corner, giving a good view of the entrance, because maybe they’re both paranoid buggers.

Somewhere around Harry’s second and Eggsy’s third Guinness, Eggsy turns to the topic of the hypothetical new recruits.

“I’m _just_ saying,” Eggsy tells him, “a little diversity wouldn’t hurt. I mean, Roxy and I are great, but if you keep looking for people who can do it all, you’re gonna be looking for a long time.”

“Is that so?” Harry’s smirking a little, and Eggsy knows he’s always a little charmed by his confidence.

Eggsy nods. “Specialization is the future, yeah?”

“And what, exactly, do you have in mind?”

“Well, you’ve gotta have your sniper spies, and your knife spies, and your, like, jiu-jitsu spies, and your sexy spies, and—” Harry’s laughing, which, _rude_. “Obviously, Roxy and I are all of the above, but we’ve gotta get a break every now and then.”

“When was the last time you had even a shred of self-doubt?” Harry’s smiling, fingers covering his mouth.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Harry finishes off his glass, a little bit of foam sticking to the bottom, a little on his lip. Eggsy stares at it, trying to decide if he should help him out and wipe it, or tell him about it, or let him figure it out on his own.

Before he can decide, Harry runs his thumb across his upper lip and gestures at the bartender for another.

Eggsy shouldn’t bring it up, but he feels pretty awful, still, like it’s this thing hanging between them, so he says, “I’m sorry about not telling you that I’m not exactly on the straight and narrow, you know? I wasn’t trying to _lie_ to you, it’s just, every time I remembered to say something, it was just terrible timing.”

“It’s fine, Eggsy.”

“I thought you should know and all, man to man. It just would’ve come out funny. Like I was trying to get with you, which I’m not, by the way. I didn’t want it seem like that or anything.”

Harry’s mouth twists a little. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about either of us being attracted to the other.”

Eggsy’s going to let him get away with that, he is, but his pride won’t let him. “I mean, yeah, but you thought I was pretty fit at first, though.”

“I wouldn’t quite say that.”

“Yeah?” Eggsy gives him a disbelieving look. “Because I’ve been picked up by enough posh types to know how you look when you’re thinking about it. Not that I’m criticizing or nothing. You didn’t do nothing, which is good, really, because I probably wouldn’t have trusted you a bit if you had.”

“That’s…” Harry looks uncomfortable. A bit embarrassed, actually.

“It’s fine! I swear, no judgement. Probably would’ve shagged you after that tussle at the Prince if you’d offered. I’m just saying, it’s good you didn’t offer. Um.” That really got away from him, actually. “Not that I’m saying that there’s still a thing there. I think we’ve moved past that quite well, don’t you?”

Alright, that went poorly. He doesn’t have to look at Harry’s face to know that.

“You know what? I’m gonna just use my mouth for drinking instead of talking, yeah?” He starts drinking his Guinness too fast, honestly, and Harry’s looking at him with this quiet sort of alarm, so Eggsy puts the glass down, swallows. It hurts a little.

“Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up,” Harry says very casually, and Eggsy’s frozen until Harry cracks a smile, and oh, he’s joking. It’s alright.

Harry turns the subject to a story about this time that Merlin thought he was trying to get something going with him, and Eggsy very nearly forgets that his foot is lodged halfway down his throat.

A couple hours later, Harry takes him home because Eggsy made the mistake of drinking a bit more than he should’ve, which is not his usual MO, but things happen.

It’s a nice walk, actually, and Harry doesn’t let him walk into a lampost or anything too embarrassing.

Actually, he _does_ let Eggsy walk into a trash can, but he sort of does as well. They giggle about it for too long, probably, because Harry _also_ had a bit too much, if they’re being honest. He’s very smiley and his cheeks are very pink, which might be the cool night air, but it’s charming either way.

They get to Harry and his mum’s easily enough, though, even if the door proves difficult. Harry nearly kicks it in, but Eggsy finds the right key just in time. They fall into the foyer, a little too loud, so Eggsy shushes him.

Harry’s very affronted by this.

It’s a moment before Eggsy can get him upstairs to his room, a long moment because Eggsy trips on the top stair and Harry has to catch him, which ends with them on the floor, covering their mouths to not laugh out loud.

They help each other up eventually, get to Harry’s room. Eggsy comes in without thinking about it. Harry falls onto the bed and starts toeing off his shoes, and that’s when Eggsy remembers that they’re going to sleep, which means he needs to go downstairs to the couch. Whoops.

“I’m gonna go, mate,” Eggsy tells Harry, who’s standing again, laying his suit jacket over the back of a chair.

“Oh, of course,” Harry says, and he looks very strange and very sweet with his collar turned up, fumbling with his buttons, so Eggsy goes in to hug him without thinking.

Harry’s head tucks on top of his, which is nice, the perfect hug height, actually. He also smells very good, which is about the least surprising thing about Harry Hart. Anyone looking at him could tell he smells good, but that’s a little different from actually getting to smell him.

Alright, Eggsy needs to go to bed and probably stop sniffing his boss. That’s a little weird.

“G’night, Harry,” Eggsy tells him when he’s pulled away.

“Yes. Goodnight,” Harry returns, and Eggsy smiles softly to himself all the way downstairs.

The next morning, Eggsy wakes to his mother getting breakfast together for Daisy.

Bleary-eyed with a fucking awful taste in his mouth, he staggers into the kitchen, making straight for the coffee pot.

“Well, aren’t you beautiful this morning?” his mother says, smirking at him.

Eggsy turns to her, not enough energy to move his face yet. He needs sweet, sweet caffeine before he can interact properly.

“Harry left a note, said he was getting an early start,” she says as he pours himself some coffee.

Eggsy grunts in acknowledgment.

“Had a bit of a late one, didn’t you?”

Eggsy shrugs.

“Not very quiet, either.” Well, fuck.

“Did we wake you?”

She shakes her head. “No, my sleeping schedule’s totally off. I was just reading.” Well, that’s good. “But, you know, it’s funny, it almost sounded like the two of you went up to Harry’s room.”

She gives him this _real intense_ look, and his mouth goes drier.

“I think I might’ve been right to put on headphones, wasn’t I?”

“So this looks pretty bad,” Eggsy tries.

She snorts. “I’d say it does, yes.” This is not good at all. “He’s more than old enough to be your father, love.”

“I know, and I swear, nothing happened. I said goodnight, I went downstairs, and that was the end of it. It’s not like that. I promise.”

“But you flirt with him,” she says, and it’s not even close to a question.

He winces. “I flirt with everyone. I flirt with Roxy all day. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I really don’t know what to do about all this.”

“ _Mum_. There’s literally nothing going on. Swear down.”

She lays out some berries in front of Daisy, shaking her head. “I _know_ you’re an adult, and I know he’s a good man, but I don’t know if I can be okay with it, or even if I should want to.”

“I swear, even if, in some alternate universe, Harry and I were into each other, he’d never do anything about it. I had to talk him into just getting a pint, alright? He’s all too aware he’s my boss.” It takes a second for him to realize how that all sounded. “ _That said_ , I have a purely professional relationship with him. And yes, drinking counts as professional at Kingsman.”

That’s just barely enough, going by her expression. “Just be careful, Eggsy. That’s all I ask.”

He’s not sure how to respond to that because he’s about three sips into his coffee and ten minutes from a hangover. She seems to be done talking about it, though, and that, at least, is some kind of miracle.

“Can you give that damn thing back to Harry?” Roxy asks as she comes out of the bathroom.

Eggsy’s sprawled across the couch in the living room, a plate full of frozen mozzarella sticks on his chest, watching some food documentary on Netflix. “It’s kinda grown on me,” he says as she lifts up his legs and wedges herself underneath.

“It’s ugly and horrible. And morbid. And I’m sure Harry misses his creepy stuffed creature.” She steals one of his mozzarella sticks, but it’s fine.

“Maybe I don’t care if Harry misses him or not.”

Roxy sighs for a long, long time. “I thought we were over this whole thing where you pretend to be angry at him.”

“I’m not angry.” He doesn’t look at her. “Me mum thought I went to bed with him last night.”

He gets a blank look and then Roxy’s laughing so hard it’s actually mostly silent, save for her gasping for air. He holds onto his plate, waiting it out.

That takes a long time. She calms and starts back up again, then gets herself together for half a second but then she’s off again.

“Alright, it’s really not that funny,” he says. “Cos she was _really_ serious about it. Tried to give me a whole talk this morning.”

“ _Priceless_ ,” Roxy says, covering her mouth.

“She thinks I flirt with him.”

Roxy shrugs. “You flirt with everyone. It’s no surprise.”

“ _That’s_ what I said!”

“Granted, no one else is Harry.”

Now he’s at a loss.

“I mean,” she says, giving him a funny little look, “if we were to make a list of people it’s acceptable to flirt with and people it’s _not_ , Harry would probably be at the top of list number two.”

“Nah, that only counts if I mean it, which I _don’t_.”

She stares at him.

“Mostly,” he admits. “But only because I wanna know if he’d go for it. Just to know.”

She nods. “Oh, of course. You just want to know if he’d be down for a shag because you don’t actually want to shag him. Makes perfect sense.”

“I….I don’t think I want to?”

Well, this is a fuck up, isn’t it? Because he doesn’t want to shag Harry, he doesn’t, that would be so much in the category of not appropriate, but. But.

“I mean, I don’t _want_ to,” he says, more confident. “It’s just how it is with some people. You don’t spend all day thinking about it, but if the situation came up, you would probably go with it. Fuck, I’d probably shag Merlin, if only to fuck with him about it later.”

“But that’s not quite the same thing, is it?”

“Well. It’s never going to happen. He would never try anything, and I _certainly_ would never try anything, so it doesn’t matter.”

She chews her mozzarella stick, giving him a very skeptical look.

It’s thoroughly undeserved.

The next day, when Eggsy strolls through the Kingsman doors, Harry pretends it’s coincidence when he comes into the shop proper. He looks a little off.

“How’s it, guv?”

Harry looks like he’s about to smile and small talk at him, but his face falls. “I had a conversation with your mother last night.”

Going by the grim line of his mouth, Eggsy knows what that means. “Oh,” he says softly, afraid, really.

“I think we should limit when we see each other to business and time at your mother’s.”

“Well,” Eggsy lets out, trying to be graceful about it. “I suppose that’s only appropriate, isn’t it?”

“Exactly.”

“Cool.”

And that’s all there is to it.

Of course, it’s the next day that he’s assigned to an undercover mission in Malawi.

For an expected three months.

Three _months_.

At the news, Eggsy’s more resigned than anything, asks, “I don’t suppose Arthur recommended me for this one, did he?”

Merlin leans back in his chair, studying him. “What happened?”

That’s not really something he wants to answer.

“ _Eggsy_.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Me mum got the wrong idea.”

Merlin sighs for about ten years, says nearly under his breath, “ _Harry, you fucking idiot_.”

“It’s fine. Send me to Malawi. I miss being in the field.”

Merlin nods, face bitter.

The Malawi mission ends up _Fucked_.

Three months turns into four, Eggsy’s shot no fewer than four times, and someone manages to kill the young man he’s supposed to protect.

It’s a failure in every way.

And he’s _very excited_ to get back to HQ, where Medical’s gonna go bonkers over him. The poorly-set broken arm from the third assassination attempt, a bomb that time, is going to be _loads_ of fun. As is getting the shrapnel out of his leg. And the fever he’s had for days.

Christ, what a mess.

Roxy punches him in the shoulder, the wrong shoulder, when he gets wheeled from the airstrip to the tiny medical bay, where she’s rightfully waiting for him.

“You’re an idiot,” she tells him.

“Obviously.”

She hugs him, a little too tight, and he burns at her body heat, probably getting sweat on her.

“Lancelot, we need to assess the damage,” Merlin says from the other side of the room, and Roxy lets him go.

“Of course.”

She sits right next to his bed.

Merlin comes over, checks his eyes, touches his head. “What on earth did you do to yourself, son?”

Eggsy can only shrug.

“Where’s the infection?”

Eggsy grimaces, starts moving to get off his trousers. “Yeah. Well. About that. I haven’t looked at it in a little bit, so it’s probably pretty lovely right about now—”

“—next time, you fucking tell me, got it?” comes a yell from the doorway.

Harry, at least, has the decency to look at little embarrassed as he comes in.

Eggsy turns his attention back to Merlin, eases his trousers down his left thigh. “There was this explosion, and I poured a bunch of vodka all over it, but I...When I tried to get all the little bits, I may have passed out.”

He pointedly doesn’t look at it. And hopes that he’s just dirty, having been underground on the run for the past week, that it’s not what’s smelly. Fuck.

“Lovely indeed,” Merlin says, craning to get a good look.

There’s a little sound, and Eggsy looks up, and Harry’s pretty much green.

“May I ask, Galahad,” Harry says, face pinched, “why you didn’t request either back-up or medical assistance at _any point_ , you goddamned stupid—”

Merlin cuts him off. “That’s enough, Harry. If you need to go back into the hall, then go. And make sure that fucking surgeon’s on their way.”

“Surgeon? Fuck, Merlin, it’s not that bad, is it? I mean, I’ll keep the leg, won’t I? I like this leg, mate. It’s a good fucking leg. I’ve got great thighs, everyone knows it.”

“It’s alright,” Merlin says gently. “It’s not gangrene, which is a miracle, honestly. But you’re going to have one hell of a scar. And goddamn it, that doctor’s taking the longest shit in the world.”

Eggsy lays back, looks at Roxy. She gives him a smile, squeezes his hand.

“You’re going to be fine,” she tells him. “I promise.”

It’s a week before he starts feeling in any way better, the infection cleared.

Roxy’s in with him almost all the time, and Merlin drops in a couple times a day to check his progress.

Harry doesn’t come back at all, actually. Which, rude.

“They better let me out of here soon, I swear,” he tells Roxy. “I’d rather be home, at least.”

“Maybe you’ll get to come home early.”

It’s kind, but he doesn’t have that kind of luck.

“Thanks, Rox.”

Over her shoulder, he sees Merlin come into the doorway. “Lancelot, I’m sorry, but you’ve got a brief…”

“Yes, right. Sorry,” she says, getting up. “Right there.”

“Knock ‘em dead,” Eggsy tells her.

She kisses his forehead, and then she’s gone.

It’s very soon after that Eggsy figures out he can walk.

Not well, his whole thigh is stiff and achey. He can’t put his weight on it or anything, but he can hobble around. Looks a sorry sight, hospital gown, all bandaged up, an arm in a cast. But he’s alright, really.

Not that certain people would know that.

Certain people who really should be checking up on their very injured protogés every once in a while, especially since said injuries happened on the job. After certain people sent them away for _four bloody months_.

When Eggsy hobbles his way into Harry’s office, he somewhat delights in the shock and guilt on his face.

“I figured, since you apparently wasn’t gonna drop by, I should let you know that I’m making a swift recovery, in fact.”

Harry stares at him a second, then sighs a little, waving at the empty chair in front of his desk. “Well, do sit down, at least. You look about to fall over.”

“I’m doing just great,” Eggsy tells him, a little snide, even as he sits.

“You look like shit, actually.”

Wonders never cease.

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” Eggsy asks.

Harry just shrugs that off.

“I’m serious, guv, you’ve been a right prick. Didn’t even say goodbye before you had me shipped off on the mission from hell, and now you’re just going to sit there and insult me? Where do you get off?”

It’s quiet a moment, Harry’s face very blank as he pours himself a few fingers of scotch.

Clearly, this little trip was a waste of time.

“Am I supposed to feel guilty?” Harry asks calmly, taking a sip.

Eggsy glares at him. “Well, _yes_.”

Harry nods, then looks down at the paperwork spread out in front of him. “I do. Of course I do. Which is why I can’t be kind to you and spoon-feed you pudding and fluff your pillows for you. You’re a Kingsman agent, which means that this is going to happen on occasion, and probably worse next time, and I can’t feel guilty about sending you into the field when I _have_ to send you into the field. It’s favoritism, and it’s inappropriate. So.”

Eggsy had been very prepared to be angry. He’s not prepared to feel all warm and sorry and charmed. That was not on the agenda. Fuck you, Harry.

“You can go now.”

Eggsy gets up. But he doesn’t go to the door. He walks around the other side of Harry’s desk and wraps his arms around Harry’s shoulders.

“I’m alright, you know,” Eggsy tells him gently. “Made of sturdy stuff.”

Harry turns into it a bit, fists bunching up Eggsy’s hospital gown. He smells good, smells the same.

“I missed you, wanker.”

A little noise catches in Harry’s throat, and his arms wrap around him, and he doesn’t say anything out loud, but he says _I’m glad you’re not dead_ and _I missed you too_.

Eggsy stays there until his leg protests too much, and then he backs away, squeezes Harry’s shoulder, and leaves.

When Eggsy’s finally able to see his mum, he’s sporting a cane, and what with the cast, she’s worried.

“I’m fine, I am,” he swears when she tuts over him, cups his face, makes him sit for some tea. Really, this is what he’s most afraid of, probably. Of her having to deal with this. It wasn’t easy to hide bruises when he was young, and he never quite succeeded, but this is supposed to be different. Their life is supposed to be better now.

“I love you,” she says. _I’m scared._

“I love you too,” he says. _So am I._

They’ve got him under house arrest, basically. He’d tried to show up at HQ after being discharged, and he was _escorted_ out to the pavement in front of the shop, told to only come back for check-ups.

They’re telling him it’s going to be a few weeks.

Eggsy isn’t someone who’s meant to fuck around for a few weeks. Not when he’s this used to having things to do.

Roxy brings him beer when she gets back from her mission, but she can’t sit around on the couch with him. Which he does a bit of because he’s feeling very self-pitying. Though he does try to exercise, does the stretches the doctor told him would help his leg heal and help the muscle come back.

But Roxy brings him beer and she doesn’t judge him for drinking quite a bit of it.

“I’m so wasted here,” he moans. “At least let me do desk work or help Merlin or _something_. I’m going bonkers.”

“It’s been six days,” Roxy reminds him.

He stares at her, full of despair. “Exactly. Six days and I already would rather be back in Malawi.”

“Don’t say that.”

“This is worse than torture.”

She pats his hand. “They just want you to make a full recovery, that’s all.”

“I think Harry’s punishing me.”

She shrugs, still chewing over it. “When you were still in the infirmary, he asked me about how you were doing every time we ran into each other. Which was surprisingly more than usual, honestly.”

“So?”

“He was somewhat unbearable while you were away,” she tells him. “Drove Merlin mad hanging around and terrified the whole training group.”

Eggsy squints at her. “That’s just his usual personality.”

“Maybe. He was worried about you, I think. Really worried.” She chews her lip. “I don’t think he’s punishing you at all. It’s supposed to be a vacation of sorts.”

He leans his head back, sighing.

Exile is so stressful.

His mum lets him hang around quite a bit. He doesn’t really have a problem with Daisy, though he has to tell her not to sit on his bad leg at least once a day.

Really, his mum probably appreciates the babysitting.

“Harry’s been so busy lately, and it’s not his responsibility or anything, I just wish she could spend more time out of daycare.” His mum sips tea while Eggsy does Daisy’s hair in some kind of complicated, experimental fishtail braid. He’s been upping his hair game lately in his time off.

“Yeah, Harry’s sure busy,” Eggsy says, and he’s bitter, he is. That’s just the truth.

It’s stupid, that he feels locked out in the cold when he gets it, a little bit, that Harry’s trying to make up for sending him away when he could’ve died. But he’s alone, and Kingsman is what he does, what he’s good at, and he can’t handle being shut out.

“You two are having a little spat, aren’t you?” his mum asks softly.

Eggsy shrugs, trying to focus on Daisy’s hair. “It was some pretty curious timing that the day after he gets spooked cos you talked to him about that thing that didn’t happen, he’s sending me off for months, under a no-contact order.”

“Oh. I...I didn’t mean to—”

“Not your fault. Not at all. He didn’t have to do what he did. That much is on him.” He frowns, realizing he dropped a strand somewhere and he’s gonna have to undo a bit. “He’s scared, is what it is. Because I got hurt and I’ll get hurt again and he’s stupid enough to think it’s his fault. Stupid, arrogant, whatever. But anyway, he’s not talking to me right now, I think.”

When he looks up, his mum is looking at him, a little sad. She gives him a little smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, sighs.

“I’m sure you’ll both figure it out,” she says at last. It’s resigned.

Eggsy could fix things, probably.

But that’s a conversation he’s not ready for just yet.


	4. my kingdom for a kiss upon your shoulder

The new recruits are a mess.

Eggsy's managed to bully Merlin into letting him hang around, but that means dealing with the recruits.

They’ve just been given their code names and with one exception, they’re a fucking disaster.

Now, Gawain, he’s excellent. Spent a year with MI-6, then transferred to a ghost branch of the CIA, where he stayed until the American intelligence agencies disintegrated. Sharp, excellent marksman, absolutely lethal in close combat. Why he hadn’t been a Kingsman in the first place, Eggsy couldn’t help but ask.

“Take a guess,” he says, and Eggsy knows at once he’s from South London. Almost definitely grew up in a council estate. That’s when Eggsy decides that Gawain will be his favorite. Gotta stick together.

The rest, they’re young. One, Kay, is also from the CIA, but a green agent when things went belly-up. Between the rest, they have a cumulative year of experience in intelligence agencies. Caradoc was living as a boxer in Dublin, and based on some filched CCTV footage from V-Day, can easily beat several men to death with his bare fists. Elyan is a gymnast, and Eggsy actually recognizes her from when he was young, and while she didn’t come to them combat-ready, he’s heard, now, she can break a man’s neck with her knee and scale a wall in a second. She’s also fond of explosions. A bit too fond.

There’s a learning curve, that’s for sure.

Well, except for Gawain. He’s fucking awesome. Roxy says Eggsy has heart-eyes around him, and he probably does, but he’s not even embarrassed about it.

Eggsy’s kind of skeptical about the rest, so he figures he should try to get to know them a bit or something. Team-building and whatnot. Roxy thinks he’s a little mad for it, but she’s been wanting a night out for a while, so when he tells them that they’re all going to the club that night, she’s right there with him.

They’re mostly all on board.

“Absolutely not,” Gawain says, and Eggsy goes for pleading. His looks do nothing.

“Merlin and Arthur will be there,” he tries.

Gawain looks at him a moment, impassive. “Fine,” he says at last, and Eggsy punches the air.

 

“Merlin, I need you to come to the club with us tonight,” Eggsy says, and he’s close to begging. Morgana and Morgause are in the bat cave, so Eggsy invites them as well, even though he’s a little afraid of them.

“Why on earth would I go to a club?”

Eggsy winces. “Look, I’m trying to bond with the new recruits, and Gawain is tops, he really is, but he only agreed to go when I said you were coming. With Harry.”

“That sounds like a personal problem,” Merlin tells him.

Eggsy gets between him and his computer so Merlin actually has to look at him. “Harry doesn’t talk to me anymore. At all. If we see each other, he _nods_ , Merlin. So since he’s not going to teach me more about how to be a good Kingsman, then I’m going to find someone who can. That someone being Gawain, who, while he hasn’t been one of us for long, is probably the most badass.”

“Harry’s really not talking to you?”

“If I go over for dinner at me mum’s and he’s there, he won’t even look at me. Something urgent tends to come up within minutes.”

Merlin sighs heavily. “I’ll get us both there if, and _only_ if, you talk to him. Not small talk, you have to talk about this whole stupid thing. You’re going to have to corner him, probably.”

“What’s in it for you?” Eggsy asks, suspicious.

“He comes in here to mope, and it really brings the mood down.” Merlin grimaces, shaking his head. "He'll sit very quietly for a while, and then he starts to  _sigh_ , and then goes on about mortality. It's such a downer."

“Amen,” Morgana says, not looking up.

“Absolutely terrible,” Morgause chimes in.

Eggsy shifts his weight. “Well, I’m not sure I can help with that.”

“I, on the other hand, am _very_ sure you can," Merlin says. "And I don't say that lightly. So do it.”

“Fine,” he says, jamming his hands into his pockets. “I’ll do my best.”

 

The club is _going_.

Eggsy’s not always huge on the scene, but if he’s in the mood, he loves it. A drink in his hand, ear drums just starting to ache, and he can dance all he wants.

“Finish your drink and come on,” Roxy beckons, taking his hand and pulling him towards the dance floor. He knocks back his cocktail and follows, pushing through tightly-packed bodies all thumping to the beat.

Kay and Caradoc and Elyan are into it, and it’s easy to get caught up. They’re all young, fit, and probably going to die before they’re forty, so why not live a little? There’s no better team-building activity than grinding on each other to a pounding bass line. Eventually, Eggsy ends up sandwiched between Caradoc and Roxy. In an ambush, they’re told to never stop moving, and it’s true here as well. They go and go and go. Get a little too close. Laugh it off.

And for the first time in a long time, it’s a good night.

 

After a while, they break for water. At the packed bar, thumping Caradoc on the back as he chokes a bit from drinking too fast, Eggsy scans the upper lounges.

And _there_.

Merlin, Harry, and Gawain sit together, a cluster of cocktails in front of them. They’re a good distance away, but even from here, Eggsy can tell how incredibly bored they are.

Ah, well, shit.

“I’ll be back in a bit, yeah?” Eggsy tells the squad, and heads for the stairs.

They’re even more impressively bored up close.

“Well, you’re a lively lot,” he tells them.

Dry looks, the driest.

Eggsy sits himself down between Harry and Gawain, throws his arms around their shoulders. “Alright, lads, you’ve gotta live a little. Come on. Up we go.”

At that, Harry jerked out of his hold. “I’m fifty-one, Galahad. I’m not going to go down there until the moment I leave.”

Eggsy hums, considering shrugging that off.

“Actually, my name’s Eggsy, thanks, and I know you know that. Cunt.”

Gawain chokes next to him, and Merlin’s watching with something like glee, but Harry’s not exactly pleased. Good.

“Excuse me?”

“I think you heard me just fine. You’re being a cunt, Harry, so I’m gonna call you one.”

“That’s _quite_ enough,” Harry snaps, grabbing Eggsy by the arm and yanking them both up. “Let’s go.”

“Now we’re finally getting somewhere,” Eggsy says, grinning, as Harry drags him to an unoccupied area. It’s mostly dark, the flashing colored lights illuminating different parts of Harry’s scowl.

“Your behavior is _unacceptable_ ,” Harry snaps.

Eggsy snorts. “Maybe if you’d actually talk to me like a normal person, I wouldn’t have to resort to shit like this to get you to say three words to me.”

That shuts Harry up.

“I’ve talked to Bedivere more than you in the past three weeks, and he hates me. The only reason he hasn’t tried to kill me in my sleep is because it would be too much effort. But you… What’s your deal?”

“I don’t have any desire to interact with you,” Harry says, jaw set. “I’d appreciate if you would respect that.”

That hurts more that it should, but Eggsy swallows against it, a sour taste in his mouth. “That’s bollocks, Harry. We both know it."

"We've reached the end of the line in your mentorship. It's over, and I don't wish to speak to you anymore."

"You don’t just get to do that, just cut me off outta nowhere. ‘S not fair.”

“I never said it was.”

Eggsy’s hand shakes. He bites the inside of his cheek.

“At least give me a fucking reason,” he lets out, catching just the edge of the tang of blood.

Harry looks at him a moment, then his eyes drop to the floor. Apparently, the nasty threadbare carpet’s really _fucking_ interesting, more interesting than the conversation Eggsy’s trying to have with him. _Fuck_ , this is a waste—

“I can’t do anything to stop it,” Harry says, very quietly, still focusing on the floor. “I have to do this job, which means that one day, I'll essentially sign your death warrant. I have to do it and I can’t again, it's—” He stops, clears his throat. “But I _can_ do my very best not to care when it happens. So.”

"But I  _know_ what I signed up for. I know there's risks."

"That's not—"  Harry looks at him now, fiercely. "I've made a very terrible and very _stupid_ mistake where you're concerned. The absolute stupidest mistake one of us can make. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

That’s…

“Are you saying you…?” _Love me_ , he finishes in his head, because it’s too absurd and too heavy to say out loud, but it fills the silence anyway.

Harry coughs. “Most regrettably, yes.”

Christ.

“So you want me to leave you alone, then?” Eggsy asks, giving him a chance to change his mind.

“That would be appreciated, thank you.”

Harry won’t look at him.

At last, Eggsy speaks. “Alright. Then that’s settled then, isn’t it?”

Harry nods.

“I’ll just be going I suppose.”

And with that, he leaves.

 

Before he even realizes, he’s outside in the cold air, coat in his hand. His head is swimming. The chill is only enough to shock him into considering where he is.

What he’s thinking about is Lancelot, the dead one, and the warm light in Harry’s study, the weight of losing a part of yourself.

Somehow, he’s not surprised.

Maybe he should be, but things with Harry have always been more intense than he could understand or explain. It makes sense. Not in a normal way, not the way a healthy, functioning person does it, but in his own way, Harry loves him. Very quietly and alone.

There’s a sharp burst of pain that vibrates through his foot when he kicks the fuck out of a rubbish bin.

It’s not fucking right. It’s not fair. What could he even do about it, though? He can’t just talk to Harry anyway. That would be cruel. Eggsy won’t do that to him. He owes him that much.

Fuck this night. Fuck it all.

“Eggsy! Where are you going?”

He turns, finds Roxy pulling on her coat. She runs up to him, heels pounding against the pavement.

“What’s wrong?” she asks when she gets to him.

He shrugs, mouth gone dry. “I think I’d like to go home and get properly pissed.”

“Do you mind some company?”

“Yeah,” he says after a second. “But I don’t think I’ll be much fun.”

She smiles. “You don’t have to be.” She throws an arm around his shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

 

He doesn’t tell her.

Doesn’t say much of anything, in fact.

 

That’s kind of his MO for a while.

Not on purpose or anything, he just doesn’t have much to say.

Doesn’t have a problem upping his exercise routines, though. He’s gonna be back in mission shape as soon as he fucking can, that’s for sure. Broken arm be damned.

 

Merlin finds him on the treadmill in the exercise room. He’s two hours into his workout, drenched in sweat, and his leg is at least sort of taking it.

“Get off that thing,” Merlin snaps at him. Eggsy’s reading his lips, headphones in, but he takes the speed down to a walking pace, yanks out the earbuds.

“What is it?”

“You didn’t do what we agreed.” That vein is standing out on Merlin’s forehead.

“Not true.”

Merlin jabs at the controls of the treadmill, making it stop abruptly. “He comes into my office, and he drinks all of my best liquor, and he _sighs_. It’s unbearable. So I know for a fact that you did not do what we agreed.”

“I talked to him, mate,” Eggsy tells him, looking him right in the eye. “I did, alright? I’m respecting his decisions, so I don’t know what more you want from me.”

Honestly, he’s not sure if Merlin knows, no fucking clue, but it wouldn’t be right to say.

“I don’t remember telling you to respect his decision,” Merlin says through gritted teeth. “You know, considering that he’s an idiot.”

Eggsy looks around, makes sure that they’re alone. “Don’t ask me to hurt him, alright? Because that’s what you’re asking. And for what? Drinks now and then? Some friendly banter? How is that fair?”

Merlin’s nostrils flare.

“I know he’s your best mate, and it doesn’t look like it right now, but this is the best thing. He’ll sort himself out soon enough.”

“I misjudged you,” Merlin says, and it’s unclear whether he means that as an insult or not. It hurts, it does, but that’s just how this all is.

“When was the last time he went out in the field?” Eggsy asks quickly, and Merlin shoots him a questioning eyebrow. “I’m just saying, he’s been grounded, basically, for months. Probably going stir crazy. Send him out into the field, get him out of your hair, distract him.”

Merlin sighs. “That might actually not be a terrible idea.”

“I know. Now can I go back to my workout?”

“Fine. Don’t push yourself too hard. You’ll only set yourself back.”

 

The only time he sees Harry is Harry’s morning run around the property, something he’s sure Harry wasn’t doing before he came back.

It’s terrible, really, because it’s a good running path, and there’s nothing quite like the crisp air to wake him up. And it’s stupid that it has to be like this, where Eggsy can only watch him out through the tree line.

They should be running together.

That’s what he wants, at least. Talking some, maybe, but then it’ll get competitive, and Eggsy will goad him into a race back to the showers. They’ll shove at each other a bit towards the end there, laughing, and fight over who crosses the threshold to the locker room first. Harry’s face will be alive and happy, he’ll probably swear a lot, but he’ll be grinning through it. And then they’ll go to take their showers, which is the fuzzy bit, really. It’s inappropriate, obviously, but he thinks of watching the water run down Harry’s naked back. And maybe Harry notices he’s looking, calls him on it, but he’s not angry. Not a bit.

Sometimes, Eggsy makes himself imagine it just being kind of awkward, and he apologizes and leaves. And sometimes he thinks of going to his knees. But he doesn’t really make it past there, embarrassed, feeling like he’s violating something. Except on the rare occasion that he’s actually in the shower while thinking about it, and then, if he takes himself in hand, it’s no one’s business but his own.

 

Eggsy’s finding discipline.

He’s trying to, at least.

He has his own routines, between working out and going over past mission footage with the recruits for learning purposes, between visiting his mum when he knows Harry won’t be there and making time for Roxy and occasionally Merlin. It’s working, he’s alright, he’s better even. Doctor says his cast’ll be off in a week, and despite a very impressive scar, his leg is basically healed up. The muscle’s strong as ever, but then, he’s been working it very hard and very carefully.

Harry starts going out on missions. Short ones, just enough to get his hands a little bloody, and according to Merlin, it’s working. He’s been a little better.

Eggsy always watches. He pulls up a chair next to Merlin, who’s always Harry’s handler, and he stays very quiet, and he watches.

Harry’s fantastic, he really is. It’s a bloody shame Eggsy won’t be able to do a pair mission with him anytime soon. He’s graceful and lovely, but he fights dirty for a posh boy. Fights to win. It’s thrilling to watch. Makes his blood burn.

He’s sitting in, watching Harry beat the living daylights out of some Russian terrorist cell, and it’s great, fun, until it all goes arse over tits.

One of the Russians must’ve been pretending to go down because Harry’s just incapacitated the last one when there’s a very audible click of a gun cocking. Harry turns, and this young, slight man has a gun pointed at his face, and something boils in Eggsy’s chest.

“ _Bugger_ ,” Harry hisses, and the man shoots.

Eggsy yells as the glasses go flying, landing in front of a bloody, dead Russian. The screen doesn’t change for a minute. The shot rings in his ears, and he can’t breathe properly, and _not again_.

He falls to the floor near Merlin’s rubbish bin and loses his breakfast. His stomach heaves a few more times after that. His eyes are watering from it, but he’s crying, too, that’s really what it is.

“Harry. Harry! You fucking idiot, get _up_ , damnit!” Merlin barks at the screen. Eggsy sobs and heaves again.

He tunes Merlin out after that, focuses on breathing, on making a solid attempt at not crying too terribly, because he has to be okay. He has to be able to do this again, has to keep on. The second he lets himself really feel it, gets to the root of the feeling, he’ll be useless for sure.

This is something he should’ve been expecting, though, isn’t it? The lifespan for the average Kingsman can’t be too long. Sure, Harry’s not average, but things happen, little mistakes that mean some teenager with a pistol gets to suck the life out of him.

“I can’t do this,” Eggsy says to himself, wishing it weren’t true. Distantly, he hears a gunshot, another, and _he can’t do this_.

“Eggsy,” Merlin says, and he ignores him until Merlin grabs his shoulder. At that, he snaps, snarls, lurching away. Merlin looks very sorry, but that’s not enough.

“ _Apparently, these people have never heard of target practice, good Lord_ ,” he hears, and no, that’s not right— “ _Merlin, is the jet quite ready? I could use a drink_.”

That’s definitely Harry, and on the screen, the glasses are being picked up, settle.

Oh, Eggsy’s gonna kill him.

“That fucking—” Eggsy breaks off, wiping his face. “Jesus, what a wanker.” He lets out a small laugh against his will. This is probably embarrassing, really, but he’s exhausted all of a sudden.

Eggsy falls back to the floor, just lays there and breathes for a good minute.

“I’m gonna kill him,” he says at last. “Fuck, is it worse the second time.”

Merlin hums in agreement. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thanks, mate.” Eggsy lets out a loud, ragged sigh and rolls over, gets to his feet. “If I ever come back here when he’s on a mission, just send me away, yeah? I’m too old for this. Gonna have a heart attack or something.”

“Will do,” Merlin tells him.

“If he pulls any of that shite again, I’m gonna drag him back from the afterlife just to pop him a good one in the face.”

Merlin smiles a little. “He’s said much the same to me about you.”

Unbearably fond, Eggsy grins. His insides are scraped out and raw, quivering, but there’s a little warmth in there. Something to keep him going when he thinks he’s about to fall over. Because he loves it a bit, the way Harry loves him. Even if he's too wrapped up in it to say it, it's in the little things. This little secret. And Eggsy will hold on to that as long as he can.

 

When he gets his cast off, Eggsy spends a long time at the firing range. Six weeks in a cast has left his forearm a little weak, shaky, so he works on it, stretches, a stress ball, maybe some wanking. In the name of physical fitness. (Which is weird, really, because he didn’t realize it, but he hasn’t been at it regularly since he lived with his mum, besides the occasional post-mission shower wank. It’s weird, getting back into it.)

He’s still benched, effectively. Merlin refuses to give him his physical until two weeks after the cast comes off.

Gawain lets him follow him around when he’s at HQ, and Eggsy’s not the only one. The rest of the new recruits call him _Dad_ and chase after him like puppies. It’s cute, really. And no, he’s not doing the same thing.

 

There’s a mission coming up, all hands on deck, and Eggsy’s gonna be part of it. Once he corners Merlin and makes him sign off on all his paperwork.

It’s begrudging when he does, and Eggsy gets it, which is why he tries not to make too much of a fuss over it.

“You’re letting me in to the big shin-dig, ain’t you?”

Merlin winces. “Well, it’s been suggested that we let you warm up a little on smaller missions, get back into the swing of things. There will be other big missions—”

“No,” Eggsy tells him, calm, looking him in the eye. “You tell Harry that this isn’t what we agreed. I won’t talk to him beyond mission parameters, but he’s not keeping me out of the field. Alright?”

“I’ll tell him,” Merlin says with a hint of a smirk.

 

The next week, they’re all at this U.N. gala, rooting out an anarchist attack. Nearly everyone’s there, mixing with diplomats and higher ups. The lot of them blend in excellently, which is no surprise. Eggsy sticks with Roxy, who’s absolutely lethal in a backless dress. Not a few people have eyes for her, but he gives them the right kind of look to scare them off. Their job’ll be much easier if she doesn’t have to kick anyone’s bollocks into their body cavity.

It’s going alright. Gawain spotted a skeevy-looking waiter, so they’re all keeping an eye on him. Sipping champagne, Eggsy scans the room. Suits and gowns and suits and gowns and the occasional Kingsman. Caradoc, Elyan, Gawain and...Harry. Of course Harry. The sharp breadth of his shoulders in his bloody bespoke suit, the elegant line of his back. This is the most he’s seen of Harry in a long time. It’s refreshing, even though he aches to be able to talk to him, to lean into him.

Eggsy looks away. They’re looking for the waiter, that’s right. That’s what he’s doing.

Alright, he’s weak. He looks back.

Harry’s turned, and he’s looking right at him. Well, looking’s maybe not the right word.

Really, Harry’s burning at him from across the room.

Eggsy’s gut feels sucked dry, the air too thick to breathe. This hurts, it really does, because he can feel Harry hurting and he'd do just about anything to make it stop. If it were his choice, he'd drag him to a corner and tell him he's an idiot and probably kiss some sense into him. And Jesus, that's not at all what he should be thinking about.

This is ridiculous, it’s some kind of Mr. Darcy mind trick bollocks, and he can’t do it. He can’t.

“I’m off to the gents,” Eggsy tells Roxy before making a quick exit into the hallway.

Once he’s alone, he takes a deep, deep breath. And several more.

“ _Galahad, status?_ ” Merlin’s voices bursts at his ear from the glasses. Right ear, means it’s his personal line.

“Just give me a minute, alright?”

“ _I take it you’ve never seen him in full pining mode_.” Right, because Merlin’s got the live feed.

Eggsy snorts, hoping it doesn’t sound as pathetic as he feels. “I guess not.” Good thing, too, because that one look was nearly enough to knock him flat. “You know what? I hate to say this, I really do, but he’s right. We can’t do missions together. We just can’t.”

“I suppose I can make that happen.”

Eggsy nods, breathing. At his left ear, Gawain’s voice crackles. “ _I’ve got him, leaving out the rear left exit. I’m on him_.”

“Show time,” Eggsy says, cracking his neck.

 

It’s nearly one in the morning when they finally leave HQ after everything. Harry and Merlin are up to some kind of interrogation, but the rest of them are free to go.

“Pint?” Eggsy asks Roxy and she shrugs.

“Sure, but I’ve got to get in at a decent time tonight.”

“Of course.”

 

Eggsy drinks half of his before he looks at her with the intent to speak. He has to talk to her. There’s too much churning in him. He’s gonna be sick otherwise.

“I need your...well, not advice, exactly, but I’ve got to tell you something,” he says and she nods. “Stays between us, alright?”

“Obviously.”

“Alright, well.” He traces his finger through the condensation on his glass. “It sounds a little silly when I say it out loud, alright, I know that, it sounds impossible probably, but Harry, well. He has, like, feelings. For me. You know, _feelings_ -feelings.”

Roxy settles her chin on her fist. “It doesn’t sound impossible. Not by a long shot.”

“Yeah?”

“Almost always, when an existing Kingsman picks their candidate, it’s a favor to someone. In my case, my father did it, so he was just cutting out the middle man, but Harry didn’t choose you like that. Not really, and I know there was something about your father going on, but you were probably the closest to being chosen purely on your own merit. Which meant that Harry actually had a reason to root for you.”

That’s kind, really, though he’s always wondered if Harry put together a file on him after Eggsy called in his favor or if he already had it waiting.

“And please, everyone knows the way he looks at you. We had a pool going, for when you came back from Malawi, about whether he’d do anything and what it would be if he did. I lost, by the way. Merlin took us for all we were worth, but that’s because he knew what we didn’t. That being, that Harry’s a coward.”

“Excuse you,” Eggsy bites, jolted.

“No, don’t get me wrong, he’s reckless as hell, and, like the lot of us, I’m sure he’s some sort of adrenaline junkie, but that’s not exactly the same thing as being brave. You have to overcome fear, and he doesn't fear anything he'd find on a mission.” Eggsy isn’t sure if he can or should argue with that. “Merlin and I have talked at length about it.”

Eggsy squints at her. “You and Merlin hang out and talk about Harry?”

“We talk about _you_ and Harry, yes,” Roxy says, shrugging. “And other things, of course, but we have a similar investment where you both are concerned, and it just so happens that Merlin often has a need to vent. The others just have a spectator’s curiosity about the whole thing, those gossips, but he and I are on a level.”

“So you knew. For a while.”

“I knew you’d tell me when you were ready.”

He makes an exasperated noise, head falling to his forearm. “I hate this. I hate it so much. It's so stupid. You know, there was a moment there where we were actually _friends?_ ”

“I know. And he tucked his tail between his legs as soon as he found out it might be possible that you could return anything. Like I said, coward. Really, you should’ve seen the row he and Merlin had when he put you up for the Malawi mission in the first place. It was very messy.”

“Who’s side is Merlin on in all this?” Eggsy asks, frowning.

“We’d both like to see you make up.” She pauses, wincing a little. “Which means, really, that we think you should talk to him because there’s no way he’ll do anything.”

This is where Eggsy has a problem, really.

“I don’t know,” he says, trying to choose his words carefully, “if I think it’s worth it to push this particular envelope. I don’t know if I even really want to.”

She gives him the most disbelieving look. “Are you seriously trying to tell me that you’ve never once thought about kissing that tiresome man?”

He's very intentionally avoided it where he can, which is maybe not the same thing as just not thinking about it. Sure, there’s a little corner of him that _wants_ Harry, but most of him just wants to be his friend again, to talk with him late into the night and laugh with him over breakfast the next morning because _God_ does he miss Harry’s sense of humor. But alright, when they took down their targets tonight, and Harry, crouched over his, looked up at him, just for a second, Eggsy had wanted to kiss him for hours. He's always nearly irresistible in the aftermath of violence. It's a serious problem.

"Alright, but it's not a good idea," he says. "I've thought about it, I've weighed my options, and that's what it comes down to."

"Yes but _why_?"

Eggsy grimaces, not sure if she'll let him get away with the truth, though he'll try it. "I'm protecting him, I suppose. There's not a lot of ways I can do that, but I can by letting him be. Give it a month or two, and he won't think of me at all."

" _Really_ ," Roxy says, almost scarily stern. "That's what you want. For him to not think of you. That's why you're still holding his stuffed dog hostage and not pointing out that if he really wanted to avoid you, he might consider not living with your mother."

"I don't want to hurt him, alright?" He glares at his mostly-empty glass. "Doesn't mean I have to like it, but it's the right thing to do."

"Fine. Then give him back Mr. Pickles. End it."

"I will."

"Alright then, it's settled."

 

He doesn't want to give the ugly fucking dog back. It's grown on him.

 

His mother corners him when he's trying to do a quick drop-in to see Daisy while Harry's in the shower. And yes, he does sneak around the back to wait for the sound of the water running before coming in.

"You're never here for more than ten minutes these days," she says. It's fierce.

"Very busy. Spy stuff. And I've got to go, actually..."

"When he comes home, he goes right to his study and drinks. Every night." Yeah, he's not sure what he's supposed to do with that. "I thought I raised you better than to break the man's heart."

"I didn't, Mum, Christ," he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "This is all his doing. And anyway, I thought you didn't want us... _you know_."

She twists her mouth into a grimace. "Because I knew this would happen. One of you would get get bored and leave the other alone and listening to Jeff Buckley records."

Eggsy crooks an eyebrow at her.

“It’s sad, love. If he just said something stupid, go on and take him back. Nobody’s perfect.” The way she says it makes it seem like it should be that easy, so he nods, a little embarrassed, honestly.

“Yeah, Mum. I’ll think about it, alright?”

Christ, her getting involved is the last thing he wanted.

 

Everyone is terrible, that much is certain.

 

Eggsy’s trying to be a good man, a better man. He’s trying to do the right thing, not the easier thing, not the selfish thing. He can do that much.

This would all be easier if everyone wasn’t breathing down his fucking neck about it.

And yes, alright, he doesn’t like to see Harry the way he is any more than the next person. But part of being a good person is respecting people’s right to make their own decisions. Harry’s a godfuckingdamn adult and everyone else needs to get with that program, that he’s going to do whatever he bloody well pleases, so if he’s moody or whatever, it’s his own fucking fault.

He’s pretty sure Kingsman has great medical benefits, which is great because his blood pressure’s been awful high lately.

 

There's nothing for it.

 

Eggsy's just gonna keep doing his own thing, and fuck all the rest.

He's gonna go on missions, gonna compete against the new recruits to keep them all in top shape, gonna braid Daisy’s hair, and he'll never think about the future.

Kingsmen don’t have futures. They only have the next mission.


End file.
